y  .  f 


a^ .  ^.^.a^ 


'^f 


^^^, /^ff 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES 

AND 

FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES 

FRENCH   CROCODILES 


AND 


OTHER  ANGLO-FRENCH  TYPICAL  CHARACTERS 


BY 

MAX    O'RELL 

AUTHOR     OF    "  A     FRENCHMAN      IN     AMERICA,"     "  JONATHAN    AND     HIS 

CONTINENT,"    "JOHN    BULL,   JUNIOR,"  "  JACQUES   BONHOMME," 

"  JOHN    BULL   AND    HIS   ISLAND,"    ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

CASSELL   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

104  &  106  Fourth  Avenue 


CorVRIGHT,    1892,    BY 

CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved. 


THE   MERSHON    COMPANY    PRESS, 
RAHWAV,    N.  J. 


vc 


S' 


'4 


To  Jonathan. 


You  have  been  kind  enough  to  receive  fav- 
orably two  volumes  of  unpretentious  impres- 
sions of  your  great  and  most  hospitable  coun- 
try, published  in  1889  and  1891. 

You  are  a  dear  friend  and  a  delightful  fellow. 
You  are  on  the  road  that  will  safely  lead  you 
to  the  discovery  of  everything  that  can  insure 
the  prosperity  of  the  land  of  which  you  are  so 
justly  proud. 

Yet  the  Old  World  can  teach  you  some- 
thing; not  how  to  work,  but  how  to  live. 

I  have  drawn  a  few  sketches  for  you.  Per- 
haps they  will  show  you  that  people  can  be 
happy  without  rolling  in  wealth,  or  living  in  a 
furnace. 

Take  up  this  little  book  and,  lighting  a  cigar, 
lie  down  quietly  on  the  grass  and  read  it 
under  the  shade  of  a  tree. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Foreigners i 

II.  John  Bull  up  to  Date 9 

III.  Jacques  Bonhomme,  the  Landed  Peasant- 

Proprietor  of  France,      .        .        .        .17 

IV.  Jacqueline,  the  Fortune  of  France,      .  27 
V.  Joseph  Prudhomme,  the  Jog-Trot  Middle- 
Class  Frenchman 33 

VI.  Entertaining  Neighbors,        ...  47 
VII.  French  Impulsiveness  and  British  Sang- 
froid   Illustrated    by    Two    Reminis- 
cences,          53 

VIII.  English    Pharisees    and    French    Croco- 
diles,         57 

IX.  French  and  English  Social  Failures,         .  69 
X.  High-Life    Anglo-French     Gibberish    as 

Used  in  France  and  England,     .        .  79 

XL  Humor,  Wit,  and  Hibernianism,          .        .  87 

XII.  The  Mal  de  Mer 95 

XIII.  British    Philosophy    and    French   Sensi- 
tiveness,       107 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIV.  The  Frknch  Snob, 123 

XV.  A    Success     as    an    Anglophobist.     (The 

Late  Marquis  de  Boissy),  .        .        .127 

XVI.  Woman  Worship 131 

XVII.  Faith  and  Reason, 139 

XVIII.  The  Worship  OF  THE  Golden  Calf,          .  153 

XIX.  Why  THE  French  WERE  Beaten  IN  1870,     .  173 
XX.  England  Works  FOR  Herself.    The  World 

Owes  Her  Nothing,      .        .        .        .  177 
XXI.  The  Spirit  of  Destruction  and  the  Spirit 

OF  Conservatism, 183 

XXII.  Order  and  Liberty,         ....  191 

XXIII.  The  Humors  of  Politics,      .        -         .  209 

XXIV.  Lords  and  Senators,        ....  225 
XXV.  What  France  Has  Done  to  Merit  the  Re- 
spect OF  THE  W^orld,         .        .        .        .231 


ENGLISH    PHARISEES   AND 
FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

FOREIGNERS. 

People  very  often  speak  ill  of  their  neighbors, 
not  out  of  wickedness,  but  merely  out  of  lazi- 
ness; it  is  so  much  easier  to  do  so  than  to 
study  their  qualities  and  all  the  circumstances 
that  might  oblige  you  to  change  your  opinion. 

For  instance,  some  fifty  years  ago,  a  great 
English  wit,  Sydney  Smith,  said  that  it  re- 
quired a  surgical  operation  to  make  a  Scotch- 
man understand  a  joke. 

Well,  an  English  joke,  he  probably  meant. 

However,  the  satire   was  neatly  expressed. 


ENGLISH  riJ A  RISERS  AND 


When    the    English  get   hold  of  a  good   joke, 
and  see  it,  it  lasts  them  a  long  time. 

The  Scotch  are  a  hundred  times  more  witty 
and  humorous  than  the  English;  but  John 
Bull  still  goes  on  affirming  tiiat  "it  requires  a 
surgical  operation  to  make  a  Scotchman  under- 
stand a  joke." 

* 

If  such  misunderstanding  can  exist  between 
the  English  and  the  Scotch,  just  imagine  what 
feelings  the  natives  of  a  land  can  inspire  in 
foreigners. 

Oh  !  that  word  foreigner  ! 

In  some  ears  it  sounds  like  bastards.  In 
some  people's  minds,  it  is  the  synonym  of  bad. 
The  English  greengrocer,  for  instance,  divides 
his  asparagus  into  large  and  small  heads.  The 
fine  large  ones  he  binds  together  and  sells  at 
high  prices  under  the  name  of  English  aspar- 
agus. The  bundles  of  threads  at  one  shilling 
figure  in  his  shop  window  diS,  foreign. 

In    England,  the    adjective  English   is  syn- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


onymous  with  excellent.  In  France,  we  hav^e 
an  adjective  that  signifies  excellent^  too,  and 
that  is  the  adjective  French.  Do  but  make  an 
observation  to  a  French  shopkeeper  upon  the 
price  of  his  goods,  and  he  will  promptly  an- 
swer: "I  keep  a  cheaper  article,  but  it  is 
naturally  of  greatly  inferior  quality.  Would 
Monsieur  like  to  see  my  English  stock?"  In 
French  commerce,  English  is  synonymous 
with  worthless. 

Now,  what  is  a  foreigner? 

No  man  was  born  a  foreigner. 

Once  an  American  said  to  me,  on  board  a 
steamer,  sailing  from  Liverpool  to  New  York : 
"You  are  a  foreigner,  I  guess." 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "not  yet.  I  shall  be, 
when  I  get  to  your  country." 

What  is  a  foreigner? 

As   a   rule,   a    foreigner   is   a   good    fellow, 


4  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

brought  111)  t>y  worthy  parents,  and  belonging 
to  a  country  quite  as  good  as  yours. 


* 

*  * 


Nations  may  be  well  or  badly  governed. 
They  may  possess  hot  or  cold  climates,  indif- 
ferent or  beautiful  scenery.  The  manners  and 
customs  of  their  inhabitants  may  be  utterly 
different.  But  the  most  stupid  statement  that 
can  possibly  be  made  is  that  some  nations  are 
better  or  worse  than  others. 


* 
*  * 


We  French  people  ought  not  to  be  a  closed 
letter  to  the  foreigner,  for  Heaven  knows  we 
make  no  attempt  to  hide  our  defects,  and  I 
might  even  add  that  if  we  did  study  to  hide 
them,  instead  of  boasting  of  them,  we  might 
cut  quite  as  good  and  moral  a  figure  as  the 
most  proper  inhabitant  of  the  British  Isles  or 
of  the  State  of  Maine. 

We  offer  ourselves  to  criticism  so  unreserv- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


edly,  owning  our  shortcomings  with  such 
frankness,  such  abandon,  that  it  ill  becomes 
our  neighbors  to  find  fault  with  us.  Indeed, 
we  are  a  nation  that  confesses  with  a  gay 
candor  that  should  disarm  unkind  criti- 
cism. 

Yes,  the  foreigner  ought  to  be  able  to  read, 
as  in  an  open  book,  that  good,  warm-hearted, 
France  that  he  hardly  looks  at.  For  him, 
France  is  Paris ;  Paris  that  supplies  him  with 
pleasures  for  a  fortnight,  and  that  he  despises 
when  he  is  satiated.  The  real  France,  peace- 
ful and  laborious,  he  knows  nothing  about  be- 
yond what  he  has  seen  of  it  from  the  windows 
of  a  railroad  car. 

On  arriving  at  home  again,  he  writes  to  his 
friends : 

"I  have  just  returned  from  France.  What  a 
country  it  is!  Ah!  I  have  seen  pretty  sights, 
I  can  assure  you !  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it 
in  private,  when  we  meet.  All  I  can  say  now 
is,  that  I  thank  God  that  I  was  born  an  Eng- 
lishman." 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


Here  is  a  good  fellow  who  has  undoubtedly 
visited  the  wrong  places. 

The  Frenchman  is  no  better.  He  comes  to 
London  for  a  week  on  business  (I  say  "on 
business,"  because  nobody  would  think  of 
coming  to  London  on  pleasure),  and  profits  by 
his  visit  to  go  and  see  Madame  Tussaud's  Ex- 
hibition. Then  he  returns  home,  and  ex- 
claims, parodying  Victor  Hugo's  celebrated 
lines:  "How  proud  a  man  is  to  call  himself  a 
Frenchman  when  he  has  looked  at  England." 

He  has  looked  at  England,  it  is  true,  but  he 
has  not  seen  it. 

To  look  is  an  action  of  the  body.  To  see  is 
an  action  of  the  mind. 

*  * 

When  people  travel  in  foreign  lands,  they 
often  make  two  kinds  of  mistakes. 

Firstly,  they  are  liable  to  visit  the  wrong 
places,  like  the  Englishman  who  returned 
home  "thanking  God  he  was  born  an  English- 
man." 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


Secondly,  they  draw  conclusions  too 
quickly. 

Let  us  illustrate  this. 

When  English  people  alight  at  a  French 
hotel  and  find  no  soap  on  the  washstand,  do 
you  believe  they  conclude  from  this  that  the 
French  carry  their  own  soap  in  their  trunks 
when  they  travel?  Not  they.  They  conclude 
that  the  French  do  not  wash,  or  that,  if  they 
do,  their  ablutions  are  performed  by  means  of 
a  corner  of  a  handkerchief  dipped  in  water. 

Mark  Twain,  the  prince  of  American  humor- 
ists, exclaims  upon  entering  the  bedroom  of  a 
French  hotel:  "What,  waiter,  no  soap!  Don't 
you  know  that  soap  is  indispensable  to  an 
Englishman  or  an  American ;  and  that  only  a 
Frenchman  can  do  without  it?" 

It  is  true  that  you  find  soap  on  the  wash- 
stands  in  English  or  American  hotels;  but  the 
English  and  their  American  cousins  may  per- 
haps be  astonished  to  hear  that  a  true-born 
Frenchman  would  have  as  much  repugnance 
to  using  hotel  soap,  as  they  would  to  using  a 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 


toothbrush  that  they  might  find  on  a  lodging- 
house  washstand.  Some  people  like  second- 
hand soap ;  some  do  not.  We  will  even  make 
bold  to  inform  them  that  a  great  niany  French 
ladies  are  so  particular  as  to  carry  about  a 
supply  of  bedroom  towels  with  them  when 
they  travel. 


CHAPTER  II. 

JOHN   BULL   UP    TO   DATE. 

Would  you  know  what  an  Englishman  is — let 
him  be  a  duke's  son,  officer  in  Her  Majesty's 
service,  student,  schoolboy,  clerk,  shopboy, 
gentleman,  or  street  rough? 

Well,  an  Englishman  is  a  lusty  fellow,  fear- 
less, hardy,  and  strong-knit,  iron-muscled,  and 
mule-headed,  who,  rather  than  let  go  a  ball 
that  he  holds  firmly  in  his  arms,  will  perform 
feats  of  valor;  who,  to  pass  this  ball  between 
two  goals,  will  grovel  in  the  dust,  reckless  of 
lacerated  shoulders,  a  broken  rib  or  jawbone, 
and  will  die  on  a  bed  of  suffering  with  a  smile 
upon  his  lips  if  he  can  only  hear,  before  closing 
his  eyes,  that  his  side  has  won  the  game. 

Multiply  this  Englishman  by  the  number  of 
the  stars  in  the  firmament,  and  you  will  arrive 

9 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


at  a  pretty  correct  idea  of  England's  martial,  if 
not  military,  force. 

The  Englishman  does  nothing  by  halves. 
His  favorite  adjective  is  thorough.  The  more 
difficulties  he  has  to  surmount  the  more  he  is 
in  his  element;  he  is  a  curious  mixture  of  lion, 
mule,  and  octopus.  Outdoing  Milo  of  Cro- 
tona,  he  would  manage  to  withdraw  his  wrist 
from  the  cleft  of  the  oak. 

Mr.  Gladstone  said  one  day  (many  years 
ago) :  "When  I  work,  I  work  as  hard  as  I  can ; 
when  I  run,  I  run  as  fast  as  I  can ;  when  I 
jump,  I  jump  as  far  as  I  can."  He  might  add 
now:  "When  I  get  into  a  mess,  I  plunge  into 
it  over  head  and  shoulders." 

* 
*  * 

To  three  qualities  I  ascribe  the  success  of 
John  Bull:  his  tenacity,  the  coolness  of  his 
head,  and  the  thickness  of  his  skin. 

Take  an  Englishman  to  visit  the  ruins  of 
some  old  castle :  he  will  not  rest  until  he  has 
thrust  his  nose  into  every  nook  and  cranny  of 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  II 

the  place,  and  climbed  the  most  crumbling 
walls,  at  the  risk  of  breaking  his  neck  over  and 
over  again.  He  has  seen  nothing  if  he  has  not 
seen  all.  You  may  think  yourself  lucky  if  he 
has  not  profited  by  your  back  being  turned  for 
a  moment,  to  go  and  hoist  the  Union  Jack  on 
the  summit  of  the  highest  tower.  That  is  a 
little  weakness  of  his  that  makes  him  a  trifle 
inconvenient  occasionally,  I  must  say ;  but, 
you  see,  one  cannot  get  on  in  this  world  with- 
out a  certain  aptitude  for  making  one's  self  at 
home. 

He  conquers  the  world  for  the  good  of  the 
world.  When  he  goes  after  pastures  new,  he 
takes  the  Bible  with  him.  It  will  not  be  long 
before  the  natives  have  the  Bible,  and  he  their 
land.  On  arriving  upon  his  new  field  of  oper- 
ation, the  missionary  places  the  Bible  in  the 
hands  of  the  natives,  and  thus  addresses  them : 
"My  dear  Brethren,  lift  your  eyes  to  Heaven, 
and  pray.  Lift  your  eyes — higher — higher — 
still  higher — that's  it.  Now  close  them,  and 
do  not  open  them  until  I  tell  you — that's  it — 


ENGLISH  riJAKJSEES  AND 


pray — there — now  open  your  eyes,  you  are 
saved." 

When  the  worthy  natives  open  their  eyes, 
their  territory  is  gone. 

Truly,  a  strange  being,  but  an  interesting 
subject  of  study,  is  this  same  Englishman. 
Capable  of  combining  a  thousand  different 
personages,  of  playing  a  thousand  different 
parts,  of  doing  in  Rome  (to  use  his  own  words) 
as  the  Romans  do;  extreme  in  each  of  his 
acts,  presenting  the  most  striking  contrasts, 
but  always  guided  by  his  reason.  Fiery  pa- 
triot, yet  calmly  bearing  the  greatest  humilia- 
tions while  awaiting  the  propitious  moment  for 
taking  his  innings.  In  the  temple,  a  publican, 
crying  aloud,  "O  Lord,  I  am  but  a  miserable 
sinner!"  Outside  its  door,  a  Pharisee,  setting 
up  for  a  marvel  of  virtue.  Worshiper  of  Mam- 
mon and  Jehovah,  the  man  most  concerned  in 
the  interests  of  the  next  world,  and  most 
wrapped  up  in  the  concerns  of  this. 

In  the  singular,  a  man  upon  whose  word  you 
can   rely  as  you  would  upon  a  trusty  sword ; 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  13 

in  the  plural,  a  people  who  have  too  often 
merited  the  epithet  "perfidious."  At  home, 
preaching  temperance,  even  to  the  forswearing 
of  all  drinks  but  water;  abroad,  not  only  en- 
couraging, but  enforcing  the  opium  trade.  At 
home,  prosecuting  the  individual  that  ill-uses 
an  animal,  unless,  indeed,  the  animal  be  a  wife; 
abroad,  setting  a  price  upon  the  head  of  a 
recalcitrant  foe.  At  home,  punishing  with 
imprisonment  the  people  who  obstruct  the 
rowdy  processions  of  the  Salvation  Army 
mountebanks ;  in  India,  sending  to  prison  the 
same  mountebanks,  who,  in  their  zeal,  might 
create  religious  difficulties  among  a  nation 
that  he  has  subdued. 

Opportunist  par  excellence,  he  never  asks  all 
or  nothing.  He  accepts  a  little  as  being  better 
than  nothing;  and  thus  it  is  that  little  by 
little,  without  shock  or  violence,  without  revo- 
lutions, he  perfects  the  machinery  of  his  con- 
stitution. 

Everything  John  Bull  does  is  perfect. 
When  anything  goes  wrong,  he  knows  where 


14  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

to  lay  the  blame :  he  keeps  Scotchmen,  Irish- 
men, and  Welshmen  conveniently  at  hand  for 
that  purpose. 

At  prayer  time,  a  man  appearing  somewhat 
uncomfortable.  When  he  prays,  he  makes  a 
grimace,  or  hides  his  face  in  his  hat,  and  re- 
minds one  of  Heinrich  Heine's  sayings,  "that  a 
blaspheming  Frenchman  must  be  a  more  pleas- 
ing object  in  the  sight  of  God  than  a  praying 
Englishman." 

Also  watch  John  Bull  as  the  collection  is 
going  on.  Hear  him  sing  at  the  top  of  his 
voice 

Were  the  whole  realm  of  nature  mine, 
That  were  an  offering  far  too  small 

Love  so  amazing,  so  divine 

Demands  my  life,  my  soul,  my  all. 

And  all  the  time  see  how  carefully  he  feels 
his  pockets  to  be  quite  sure  that  it  is  a  three- 
penny bit  that  he  has  got  hold  of. 

* 

And  what  a  diplomatist  he  is !  Ask  him  for 
a  reform,  and  he  will  stare  at  you  astonished, 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


assuring  you  that  all  is  for  the  best  in  the  best 
of  worlds.  But  shake  your  fist  at  him,  and 
show  him  that  you  mean  to  have  that  reform, 
and  he  will  smile,  and  say :  "Oh,  that's  all 
right,  I  beg  your  pardon,  I  didn't  know  that 
you  were  in  earnest." 

* 

To  sum  up : 

Worshiping  his  old  monarchy,  devoted  to 
his  old  institutions,  but  ravenous  for  justice 
and  liberty,  he  would  be  ready  again  to-day  to 
demolish  both  monarchy  and  constitution,  as 
he  did  in  the  seventeenth  century,  if  his  lib- 
erty ran  the  least  danger.  In  politics,  posses- 
sing the  virtues  that  are  indispensable  to  the 
prosperity  of  a  nation — respect  of  the  law  and 
respect  of  power  clearly  manifested — he  always 
bows  to  the  decision  of  a  majority.  Refusing 
to  submit  to  despotism  in  any  shape  or  form, 
he  himself  keeps  in  order  and  discipline  all  his 
paid  guides  and  governors:  his  queen,  his 
princes,  his  ministers,  his  generals,  his  judges, 
his  priests. 


l6  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

Wise,  industrious,  and  persevering,  never 
doubting  his  strength,  above  all  minding  his 
own  business,  and  imposing  upon  one  and  all 
their  attributions  and  duties,  from  his  sover- 
eign down  to  the  humblest  citizen,  he  has 
chosen  for  his  motto : 

Fais  bien  ce  que  fais. 


CHAPTER  III. 

JACQUES   BONHOMME,  THE    LANDED   PEASANT- 
PROPRIETOR   OF   FRANCE. 

Jacques  Bonhomme  is  a  small  landowner, 
fond  of  his  country,  his  cottage,  his  fields,  his 
cow,  and  his  gros  sous.  His  great  aim  is  to  be 
independent  of  the  world,  and  to  this  end  he 
takes  great  care  of  his  pence,  and  has  no  need 
of  any  French  John  Bright  to  tell  him  that  if 
he  does  so,  the  pounds  will  take  care  of  them- 
selves; it  is  a  sentiment  inborn  in  him.  If 
you  wish  to  make  him  happy,  when  he  brings 
you  a  load  of  wood  or  a  cask  of  cider,  pay  him 
in  silver  five-franc  pieces — his  coin  of  predilec- 
tion. He  will  take  gold  without  repugnance, 
but  will  look  askance  at  a  banknote.  If  you 
were  to  tender  him  a  check,  the  odds  are  ten 
to  one  that  he  would  immediately  go  for  a 
policeman. 

17 


l8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

He  does  not  seek  to  imitate  the  dweller  in 
cities,  either  in  his  habits,  speech,  or  dress. 
All  he  has  on  his  back  is  not  worth  more  than 
four  or  five  francs,  but  his  blouse  is  new  when 
he  buys  it,  and  it  belongs  to  him,  as  my  black 
coat  belongs  to  me.  His  food  costs  him  about 
fourpence  or  fivepence  a  day  at  the  outside, 
but  it  is  wholesome  and  abundant.  He  keeps 
early  hours  and  saves  his  candles,  he  lives  a 
healthy  life  and  saves  doctors'  bills.  When  he 
lies  down  to  die,  it  is  in  his  own  bed,  and  his 
parish  has  not  to  pay  for  his  funeral. 

Every  French  village  has  its  poor,  but  pau- 
perism is  unknown,  for  Jacques  Bonhomme  is 
charitable,  and  he  always  finds  means  to  send 
a  basin  of  soup  to  a  neighbor  whom  he  knows 
to  be  in  want  of  one.  It  is  only  for  the  loafer 
that  he  has  no  pity ;  when  he  has  called  a  fel- 
low-creature faineant,  he  has  used  the  strong- 
est invective  in  his  vocabulary. 

In  politics,  he  takes  very  little  interest,  if 
any.  All  governments  are  acceptable  to  him, 
except  perhaps  the  one  that  happens  to  be  in 
power  when  he  gets  bad  weather  for  the  har- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  19 

vest.  How  else  explain  the  fact  that  changes 
of  government  have  always  been  made  in  Paris 
without  his  sanction,  or  even  his  opinion  being 
asked  for;  and  that  the  seven  million  five  hun- 
dred thousand  men  who  vote  for  the  Republic 
to-day,  are  the  seven  million  five  hundred 
thousand  who,  when  they  were  asked  by  the 
Emperor,  in  the  year  of  the  Plebiscite,  whether 
they  would  still  have  him  or  not,  answered 
almost  to  a  man:  "I  will." 

Jacques  Bonhomme  scarcely  knew  what  a 
Plebiscite  was;  but  he  went  to  see  his  parish 
priest,  who  said  to  him : 

"Are  you  married,  Jacques?" 

"Yes,  monsieur  le  curey 

"Well,  and  what  did  they  make  you  say  on 
your  wedding  day?" 

''Ma  foi,  monsieur  le  aire,  they  made  me 
say,  /  IV ill." 

"Well,  my  good  fellow,  that  is  all  the  Empe- 
ror asks  you  to  say;  that  is  voting." 

Whereupon  Jacques  went  and  threw  his  oui 
in  the  electoral  box. 

There  is  one  form  of  government,  however, 


20  ENGLISH  r II A  RISERS  AND 

of  which  he  would  dread  the  return  :  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  cuvl's.  lie  has  not  forgotten 
the  tithe  and  the  corvt'e,  nor  the  days  when  the 
monks  used  to  come  and  pay  Httle  visits  to  his 
wife  and  his  cupboard,  to  bless  his  children, 
and  relieve  him  of  his  superfluous  butter  and 
eggs. 

He  is  no  great  churchgoer;  yet,  when  he 
meets  his  parish  priest,  he  touches  his  cap,  but 
almost  as  he  would  touch  it  to  an  equal. 

He  is  beginning  to  know  how  to  hold  a  pen, 
but  he  rarely  uses  one  except  for  the  purpose 
of  adding  up  his  little  accounts.  As  to  letter- 
writing,  he  sees  no  fun  in  a  frivolous  pastime 
that  would  cost  him  three  sous. 

He  has  been  placed  by  Nature  on  a  fertile 
soil  that  yields  him  all  he  needs,  and  if  you 
were  to  talk  to  him  of  emigration,  he  would 
stare  and  ask  you  what  crime  he  had  commit- 
ted to  deserve  transportation.  There  is  no 
more  home-abiding  creature  upon  the  face  of 
the  earth. 

You  may  tell   him  you  are  going  round  the 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  ai 

world.     He  will  let  you  go.     He  is  not  jeal- 
ous. 

On  the  wall  of  the  village  schoolroom  he  has 
seen  a  map  of  the  world,  but  although  he  is 
willing  to  believe  that  it  fairly  represents  the 
earth  we  live  on,  he  would  fain  have  seen  the 
name  of  his  dear  village  on  it.  He  doubts  not 
that  the  earth  is  round,  since  his  cure  and  his 
schoolmaster  say  so  ;  but  the  only  proof  he  has 
of  it  is  the  sight  of  the  line  of  horizon  that 
greets  his  eyes,  when  he  climbs  the  hill-top. 

I  know  two  or  three  of  these  honest  French 
workers,  who  were  induced  to  go  to  Paris  in 
1878,  to  see  the  Universal  Exhibition.  Such 
was  their  suspicion  of  the  gay  capital  that, 
before  setting  out,  they  sewed  their  golden 
louis  in  the  lining  of  their  coats,  and  had  their 
wills  made  by  the  notary. 
* 

The  French  peasant  is  peaceful,  sober,  and 
laborious.  He  possesses  in  a  remarkable  de- 
gree that  invaluable  quality  than  which  there 


22  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

is  no  higher  intelligence  for  the  solution  of  the 
great  problem  of  existence,  which  consists  in 
patiently  accepting  one's  fate,  however  hard 
it  may  be,  and  making  the  best  of  it.  His 
ideal  of  life  is  the  independence  which  is  the 
fruit  of  labor,  and  he  is  satisfied  with  very  little 
in  the  days  of  his  strength,  because  the  pros- 
pect of  eating  his  own  bread  when  his  strength 
is  gone  makes  him  happy.  He  is  thrifty  and 
self-denying,  but  he  is  not  deficient  in  any  of 
the  generous  sentiments.  He  befriends  his 
poorer  relatives,  he  can  be  hospitable  and  char- 
itable, and  a  patriot,  too,  when  occasion  calls, 
as  history  has  proved.  But  he  is  no  fire-eater, 
no  yearner  after  social  regeneration  by  baptism 
of  blood,  no  dreamer  of  new  worlds  to  con- 
quer, nor  the  revival  of  dying  feuds  in  ghastly 
wars.  The  surging  passions  of  the  capital, 
bred  and  fed  by  vice  and  improvidence,  are 
horrible  to  him.  He  wishes  the  world  to  be 
at  peace,  so  that  he  may  be  left  alone,  and  be 
allowed  to  raise  his  flocks  and  grow  his  corn 
and  wine  in  peace. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  23 

It  is  when  he  is  making  a  purchase,  at  the 
fair  or  at  the  market,  that  Jacques  is  to  be 
seen  in  his  element. 

Look  at  him  as  he  takes  a  preliminary  turn 
or  two  around  the  httle  rickety  stall.  He  hes- 
itates a  long  while  before  making  up  his  mind ; 
he  knows  that  if  he  seems  to  have  a  fancy  for 
any  particular  article,  he  will  probably  be 
asked  a  good  price  for  it.  So  it  is  only  cau- 
tiously, and  with  a  look  of  indifference  on  his 
face,  that  he  at  length  draws  near.  Next,  tak- 
ing up  the  coveted  object  with  the  limpest  of 
fingers,  he  gives  off  sundry  little  grunts  of  dis- 
approbation. He  turns  it  over  and  over,  looks 
at  it  well  on  all  sides,  shakes  his  head,  and 
invariably  finishes  by  dropping  it  back  in  its 
place  again. 

Then  he  turns,  and  makes  as  though  he 
would  go  away,  but  after  having  taken  a  few 
steps,  he  brings  up,  comes  back,  and  indicating 
the  object  of  his  maneuvers  with  a  contemptu- 
ous finger,  says  to  the  vender: 

"What  do  you  want  for  tJiat?  " 


24  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

And  you  should  see  the  face  he  makes  as  he 
says  "thatJ" 

He  has  scarcely  heard  the  reply  before  he 
exclaims:  "You  mean  that  for  a  joke,  I  sup- 
pose." 

Watch  him  a  little  later,  as  he  goes  off,  car- 
rying his  purchase  in  triumph,  and  you  will 
plainly  see  that  he  has  made  a  bargain. 

If  Solomon  had  known  Jacques  Bonhomme, 
we  might  be  inclined  to  think  that  it  was  he 
whom  the  Hebrew  king  had  in  his  mind's  eye, 
as  he  wrote:  "It  is  naught,  it  is  naught,  saith 
the  buyer;  but  when  he  has  gone  his  way, 
then  he  boasteth." 

Jacques'  manner  is  no  less  remarkable  when 
he  has  to  part  with  the  value  in  cash. 

He  seldom  carries  his  money  in  his  trousers' 
or  waistcoat  pocket.  He  confides  it  to  the 
depths  of  a  long  purse,  from  which  it  is  only 
to  be  extracted  with  difficulty,  and  this  purse 
is  hidden  inside  his  blouse,  and  carefully 
attached  to  it  by  a  strong  leather  string. 

When    the   operation  of   paying  has    to  be 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  25 

performed,  Jacques  gently  lifts  his  blouse,  and, 
making  a  rather  wry  face,  draws  forth  his 
purse  from  its  hiding-place.  In  the  act  of  un- 
tying the  leather  string,  he  is  as  unhappy- 
looking  a  creature  as  you  may  well  behold. 
He  rarely  faces  the  enemy  on  these  occasions. 
He  turns  his  back  to  you,  and  pretends  to  have 
great  difificulty  in  getting  his  money  out  of  his 
recalcitrant  purse.  Perhaps  he  hopes  you  will 
get  tired  of  waiting,  and  say  to  him:  "Never 
mind,  Jacques,  you  can  pay  me  another  day." 

When  at  last  he  has  the  money  in  his  hand, 
he  turns  toward  you,  holds  it  out,  draws  it 
back,  but  eventually  makes  up  his  mind  to  the 
loss  of  this  little  portion  of  his  patrimony. 

Then  he  begins  to  wonder  whether  you  have 
not  taken  him  in ;  but,  as  it  is  too  late  to  draw 
back,  he  resolves  that  he  will  be  a  match  for 
you  next  time. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

JACQUELINE,   THE    FORTUNE  OF  FRANCE. 

Jacques  Bonhomme's  wife  is  the  fortune  of 
France,  Hard-working,  thrifty,  sober,  you  will 
always  see  her  busy,  either  working  in  the 
field,  selling  her  wares  in  the  market-place  of 
the  nearest  town,  or  engaged  about  her  little 
household.  She  is  the  personification  of  in- 
dustry, and  when  the  winter  of  life  comes  on, 
you  will  find  her  by  the  chimney  corner,  or 
near  the  cottage  door,  keeping  watch  over  the 
little  ones,  while  she  knits  or  spins ;  it  is  with 
her  needles  or  her  distaff  in  her  hand  that  she 
peacefully  passes  away  from  earth.  Not  an 
hour  in  the  life  of  the  good  Jacqueline  has 
been  spent  in  indolence. 

It  is  she  who  hides  the  five-franc  pieces  in 
the  corner  of  her  linen  cupboard,  only  to  be 
taken    out  when   there   is   an    opportunity  of 

27 


28  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

rounding  off  the  little  family  domain.  Shares, 
bonds,  and  all  such  lottery  tickets,  she  leaves 
for  the  small  bourgeois  of  the  town,  who  love 
to  wait  their  turn  at  the  door  of  the  Treasury 
Office  on  the  day  of  a  national  loan.  No 
papers  for  her;  what  she  likes  is  a  field  or  a 
cow,  something  she  is  quite  sure  to  find  in  its 
place  in  the  morning,  when  she  wakes  up. 

It  is  on  market-day  that  you  should  see  her! 
She  makes  light  of  a  ten  or  twelve-mile  walk 
to  the  chief  town  of  her  district,  carrying  a 
basket  loaded  with  fruit  or  vegetables  on  each 
arm.  In  the  evening,  you  may  meet  her  with 
baskets  empty,  but  pockets  full,  trudging  back 
to  her  peaceful  cottage — the  center  of  all  her 
affections.  Follow  her  along  the  road  a  little, 
and  you  will  see  that,  as  she  goes,  she  man- 
ages to  busy  her  fingers  on  a  pair  of  stockings 
for  the  little  ones. 

Her  daughter  does  not  wear  fringes  on  her 
forehead,  feathers  on  her  hat,  fifty-cent  dia- 
monds in  her  ears,  or  flounces  on  a  second- 
hand skirt ;  but,  though  she  is  dressed   in   a 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  29 

plain  coarse  serge  gown,  and  a  simple  snowy 
cap,  her  round  rosy  cheeks  tell  you  that  she  is 
healthy,  and  a  pair  of  eyes,  that  stare  at  you 
like  the  daisies  in  her  father's  field,  tell  you 
that  she  is  pure. 

When  she  goes  into  service — which  is  often 
the  case — every  month,  as  she  receives  her 
wages,  she  quietly  pays  a  little  visit  to  the  sav- 
ings bank  of  the  town. 

When  the  English  servant  receives  her 
monthly  wages,  she  straightway  goes  to  buy  a 
new  hat  and  get  photographed  in  it. 

I  will  refrain  from  speaking  of  the  duchesses 

who    condescend    to    act   as   "helps"    to   the 

American  public. 

* 
*  * 

And  the  patriotism  of  her!  Ah,  let  me 
here  pay  my  humble  tribute  of  admiration  and 
gratitude  that  she  has  so  great  a  claim  to! 
Who  among  us  French  has  not  kept,  en- 
graven on  his  memory,  the  souvenir  of  the 
devoted    peasant    women    of    Normandy,  Pi- 


3°  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

cardy,  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  all  they  did 
for  us  in  that  terrible  year  that  would  have 
seen  the  death  of  France,  if  France  could  die? 
Who  among  us  has  not  admired  and  blessed 
them?  With  a  sad  smile  on  her  face,  how 
kindly  the  poor  Jacqueline  welcomed  the 
weary  soldier,  worn  out  with  fatigue  and  hun- 
ger! And,  while  the  rich  bourgeois  too  often 
received  us  with  a  frown,  as  he  muttered, 
"More  soldiers!"  her  greeting  was  always 
kindly.  "Come  in.  my  poor  lads,"  she  would 
cry;  "you  are  tired  and  hungry.  We  have 
not  much  to  offer  here,  but  5/ou  shall  have  a 
bed  to-night,  if  it  is  but  a  bed  of  straw,  a  good 
soup,  and  a  rasher  of  bacon,  or  whatever  there 
is  in  the  cupboard.  That  will  do  you  good. 
My  own  poor  lad  is  fighting  somewhere;  it  is 
many  weeks  ago  now  that  I  heard  from  him, 
but  I  hope  some  kind  soul  is  doing  for  him 
to-night  what  I  am  doing  for  you."  And  the 
good  creature  would  prepare  her  vegetables, 
put  the  soup  on  the  fire,  make  up  beds  for  us 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  31 

around  the  hearth,  and  give  us  old  soft  shoes 
for  our  poor  bh'stered  feet.  And  when,  in  the 
morning,  we  left  her  hospitable  roof,  we  would 
say,  " Allans,  utaman,  adieu  et  inerci.  God 
bless  you  for  all  you  have  done  for  us."  And 
as  we  went  our  way,  she,  standing  on  the 
threshold  of  her  door,  would  wave  her  hand- 
kerchief, and  watch  the  regiment  out  of  sight. 
Then  she  would  turn  away,  and  the  evening 
found  her  ready  to  do  the  same  for  the  next 
weary  band  of  men  that  halted  at  her  door. 

Oh !  my  good  peasant  folk  of  France,  you 
are  the  fortune  of  your  country,  and  you  also, 
with  your  rustic  simplicity,  are  its  generous 
heart.  It  is  among  you  that  tired  human 
nature  drinks  deep  draughts  of  pure  life-giving 
air,  and  forgets  the  struggles  of  the  city,  its 
noisy  pleasures,  its  ephemeral  joys,  its  jealous- 
ies and  burning  hatreds;  it  is  in  your  midst 
that  the  soul  is  tuned  into  harmony  with  man- 
kind,  and    man    feels   at   peace    with    all   the 


32  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

world,  as  he  looks  at  the  bright  spring  blos- 
soms, breathes  the  intoxicating  perfume  of  the 
humid  forest,  and  gazes  at  Nature,  as  she 
emerges  from  her  bath  of  dew  to  robe  herself 
in  a  raiment  of  light. 


CHAPTER  V. 

JOSEPH  PRUDHOMME,   THE  JOG-TROT   MIDo 
DLE-CLASS  FRENCHMAN. 

Joseph  Prudhomme,  whom  the  Anglo-Saxon 
people  are  fond  of  representing  as  a  fighting 
cock,  sighing  constantly  after  glory  and  con- 
quest, is  a  modest  proprietor,  peaceful,  home- 
loving,  steady-going,  whom  his  mother  calls 
"petit,"'  and  his  wife  leads  by  the  nose. 

Glory  and  conquests!  he  has  had  enough  of 
all  that :  it  is  peace  that  he  asks  for  at  the  top 
of  his  voice.  Like  his  social  inferior,  Jacques 
Bonhomme,  the  only  conquest  that  he  hankers 
after,  is  the  conquest  of  that  independence 
which  is  assured  by  a  safe  investment  at  three 
or  three  and  a  half  per  cent. 

Joseph  is  not  wealthy,  but  he  is  rich,  rich 
like  most  of  us,  not  in  that  which  he  possesses, 
but  in  that  which  he  knows  how  to  do  with- 

33 


34  ENGUSH  PHARISEES  AND 

out.  He  is  rich,  because  the  Httle  he  has  got 
is  always  safe  and  stable. 

It  is  stability  in  fortunes  and  the  proper  dis- 
tribution of  wealth  over  a  nation  which  consti- 
tute real  riches,  and  that  is  why  France,  who 
has  now  more  than  six  millions  of  contented 
landed  proprietors,  is  probably,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  the  richest  nation  in  the 
world. 

Joseph  is  by  no  means  a  great  speculator. 
Economical  and  industrious,  he  quickly  goes 
on  his  sober  way,  until  he  has  amassed  the 
snug  little  sum  that  will  allow  him  to  live  at 
his  ease. 

To  have  from  one  to  two  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  such  is  his  aim.  As  soon  as  he  has 
attained  tt,  he  knocks  off  work  and  takes  life 
easily,  devoting  his  time  to  his  wife  and  family. 

Economy  is  the  very  genius  of  France. 
The  peasant  buys  a  bit  of  land ;  the  working 
classes  put  something  in  the  savings  bank, 
which,  at  the  present  moment,  has  more  than 
$450,000,000  in  its  coffers.     The  middle  classes 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  35 

buy  government  securities.     Very  few  people 
speculate. 

In  France,  everybody  runs  after  comfort, 
but  few  run  after  wealth.  When  an  American 
has  a  million,  he  must  have  two,  and  then  ten. 
He  forgets  that  he  can  possess  one  million, 
but  cannot  possess  ten,  without  losing  his 
peace  of  mind  and  happiness.  The  French- 
man wants  comfort ;  he  wants  enough  to 
establish  his  children,  educate  his  boys,  por- 
tion his  daughters,  and  spend  his  old  days  in 
quietness.  He  wants  no  more.  In  France, 
we  have  no  Jay  Goulds.  If  a  Suez  Canal  was 
made,  it  did  not  owe  its  existence  to  a  few 
capitalists,  but  to  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
workers  who  brought  their  savings. 

When  Joseph  has  retired  from  business,  he 
begins  to  dream  of  honors.  The  words  Town 
Counselor,  District  Counselor,  and  Mayor,  are 
pleasing  to  his  ear,  inasmuch  as  these  honor- 
able posts  enable  their  holders   to  wear  uni- 


36  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

forms.  And  Joseph  has  a  decided  weakness 
for  uniforms  and  gold  braid.  A  sword  spe- 
cially; a  sword  adds  an  inch  or  two  to  his 
stature. 

He  is  fond  of  making  sounding  phrases,  and 
his  signature  is  a  masterpiece  of  inimitable  cal- 
ligraphy. 

His  game  of  predilection  is  dominoes. 
When  he  plays  at  loto,  he  never  fails  to  add, 
after  announcing  the  number  stv^^n,  ia  pipe  ct 
Thomas. 

When  he  sends  twenty  francs  to  his  boy,  he 
scrupulously  seals  the  envelope  in  five  places, 
and  stares  incredulously,  if  you  tell  him  that 
the  English  often  stuff  a  bundle  of  banknotes 
into  their  letters,  and  do  not  take  the  trouble 
to  register  them. 

He  has  the  name  of  being  a  Republican.  I 
am  willing  to  believe  him  one,  since  he  now 
votes  for  the  Republic ;  but  it  is  less  from  pro- 
found conviction  than  from  the  dread  of  hear- 
ing that  barricades  are  being  erected  in  Paris, 
that  he  votes  for  the  government  of  the  day. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  37 

"Beati  possidejitesr  he  cries,  there  is  nothing 
like  tranquillity. 

He  is  administered  to  his  heart's  con- 
tent. 

He  belongs  to  a  little  town,  administered  by 
a  mayor,  two  deputy-mayors,  and  a  municipal 
council ;  his  little  town  forms  part  of  an  arron- 
dissement,  administered  by  a  sub-prefect  and  a 
council  of  arrondissenient;  his  arrondissemerit 
forms  part  of  a  department,  administered  by  a 
prefect,  a  council  of  prefecture,  and  a  general 
council ;  his  department  forms  part  of  France, 
administered  by  a  President  of  the  Republic,  a 
ministerial  council,  a  council  of  state,  a  Senate, 
and  a  Chamber  of  Deputies.  Add  to  this,  the 
general  council  of  agriculture,  the  general 
council  of  commerce,  the  council  of  manufac- 
tures, the  council  of  mines,  the  council  of 
roads  and  bridges,  the  council  general  of 
prisons,  the  council  of  war,  the  council  of 
finance,  the  council  of  the  navy,  the  council 
of  prud'hounnes,  the  board  of  health,  and  a 
hundred  others,  and  you  will  see  that,  if  Joseph 


3^  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

pays  taxes,  he  has  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  he  is  counseled  abundantly. 


His  accounts  are  kept  by  an  administration 
that  "all  Europe  envies,"  and  carried  to  the 
fourth  decimal,  a  luxury  which  costs  him  a 
good  fourth  of  his  revenue  in  personnel  and 
red  tape,  but  which  on  the  other  hand  saves 
the  Treasury  at  least  one  dollar  per  annum. 
The  centimes  column  is  guaranteed  exact  by 
every  French  clerk;  this  ought  to  console 
Joseph  for  the  little  errors  which  may  exist  in 
the  column  of  the  milHons.  In  a  ministerial 
ofifice,  a  mistake  of  a  centime  puts  the  whole 
staff  in  commotion,  from  the  ground  floor  to 
the  roof,  and  if  a  clerk  were  to  propose  to 
replace  the  centime  out  of  his  own  pocket,  and 
thus  set  matters  right,  he  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  dangerous  man,  and  his  career  would 
be  blasted,  unless,  indeed,  the  affair  should 
make  some  noise,  in  which  case  he  might  see 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  39 

himself  provided  with  a  seat  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies. 

In  business,  Joseph's  probity  is  almost  pro- 
verbial, and  his  punctuality  carried  to  a  ridicu- 
lous point.  On  quarter  day,  he  pays  his  rent 
at  the  stroke  of  noon.  In  England,  the  land- 
lord can  only  demand  his  rent  twenty-one  days 
after  it  is  due,  and  bills  are  only  presented 
after  three  days'  grace.  His  commerce  is  hin- 
dered by  his  exaggerated  attention  to  trifles, 
but  when  he  sells  you  a  pair  of  boots,  you  can 
put  them  on,  and  walk  in  them. 

He  is  jealous  of  his  reputation,  and  a  com- 
pliment paid  to  the  quality  of  his  merchandise 
gives  him  as  much  pleasure  as  the  profit  he 
gets  out  of  it. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  afifirm  that  not  only 
does  the  small  French  bourgeois  not  covet 
wealth,  but  that  he  is  almost  afraid  of  it.  I 
might  name  many  old  provincial  parents,  who 
have  written  long  letters  to  their  sons,  com- 


40  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

mencing  with  congratulations  upon  the  liter- 
ary, artistic,  or  other  successes  they  had  met 
with  in  Paris,  and  ending  with  lamentations 
over  the  financial  ones  which  had  resulted 
therefrom.  These  good  people  were  full  of 
fear  lest  money  should  raise  a  barrier  between 
them  and  their  dear  son,  and  thus  cloud  the 
happiness  of  the  family. 

* 

Joseph  rarely  renounces  his  bachelor's  life 
before  the  age  of  thirty. 

When  he  marries,  woman  is  not  exactly  an 
enigma  to  him ;  but  do  you  think  he  is  any 
the  worse  husband  for  that?  Not  he.  The 
purity  of  his  wife  becomes  an  object  of  worship 
for  him ;  he  recognizes  in  her  a  moral  being  so 
superior  to  himself  that  he  soon  abdicates  all 
his  prerogatives  in  her  favor;  and  he  consoles 
himself  for  the  authority  that  he  rarely  knows 
how  to  maintain  in  his  home,  with  the  thought 
that  the  administration  of  his  affairs  is  in  safe 
hands.     Taking  life  placidly,  he  grows  round 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  41 

and  rubicund ;  he  is  well  cared  for,  petted, 
coddled ;  he  lives  in  clover.  His  wife  is  his 
friend,  his  confidante.  If  from  one  cause  or 
another  the  family  revenue  diminishes,  she 
knows  it  as  soon  as  her  husband ;  with  her 
economy  and  good  management,  she  faces  the 
danger;  with  her  energy,  she  wards  off  ruin 
from  her  threshold.  In  important  matters,  as 
well  as  in  the  smallest,  she  has  both  a  consult- 
ative and  deliberative  voice.  Content  with  her 
supremacy  in  the  home  circle,  she  asks  for  no 
other  rights;  politics  are  not  in  her  line.  And 
yet  a  French  woman  is  far  from  lacking  patri- 
otism. Those  same  timid  girls  and  tender 
mothers  who  could  not  bear  us  out  of  their 
sight,  are  the  women  who  said  to  us,  not  long 
since:  "Do  not  think  about  us;  your  country 
claims  you,  do  your  duty." 

* 

Provincial  life  in  France  is  narrow,  limited 
in  the  highest  degree,  I  must  admit ;  but  what 
wealth    of    love    and    happiness    those   little 


42  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

coquettish-looking  white  houses  hold!  They 
are  so  many  nests ! 

The  greatest  charm  about  our  provincials, 
who  are  constantly  made  the  butt  for  Parisian 
witticisms,  is  that  they  do  not  change. 

When  you  live  that  feverish  Parisian  life, 
that  consumes  you  by  overtaxing  your  intel- 
lectual powers,  what  a  treat  it  is  to  go  and  see 
the  old  folks,  in  the  old  house  that  is  standing 
there  just  as  you  remember  it  in  your  child- 
hood !  Every  room,  every  piece  of  furniture, 
is  linked  in  your  memory  with  some  event  of 
bygone  days.  How  you  revive  in  that  old 
place ! 

In  the  thickest  darkness  you  could  find 
everything.  Your  dear  old  mother  is  there  in 
her  chair  by  the  window,  in  her  favorite  place, 
which  has  not  altered  so  much  as  an  inch. 
The  old  servant,  who  danced  you  on  her  knee, 
watches  at  the  door  for  the  first  glimpse  of  the 
carriage  that  brings  you.  And  the  cries  of 
joy,  and  the  clapping  of  hands!  What  wel- 
come  awaits  you !      Everyone  speaks  at   the 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  43 

same  time,  you  are  taken  by  storm,  nobody 
thinks  of  checking  his  delight  (in  France,  joy 
is  allowed  free  outlet).  You  go  up  to  the 
room  that  used  to  be  yours  to  shake  off  the 
dust  of  your  journey.  Nothing  is  altered, 
everything  is  there,  just  where  it  always  was 
in  the  old  days ;  you  feel  as  if  you  had  grown 
twenty  years  younger.  You  go  down,  and  in 
the  dining  room  you  see  the  large  fireplace 
that  has  undergone  no  stupid  modernizing. 
Will  you  ever  forget  the  bloodcurdling  ghost 
stories  that  you  listened  to  so  breathlessly  in 
the  twilight,  as  you  roasted  chestnuts  in  the 
embers?  What  shivers  of  horror  would  run 
through  you  as  you  nestled  close  up  in  that 
chimney  corner!  And  so  all  the  past  revives 
again :  the  April  walks  in  quest  of  dewy  prim- 
roses, the  scamper  over  the  daisy-strewn  fields 
in  the  glorious  summer  sunshine;  the  clandes- 
tine raids  on  the  pear  trees,  and  the  scoldings 
from  mother,  who  was  sure  to  read  the  history 
of  the  afternoon  in  the  meek  faces  and  torn 
raiment. 


44  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

The  Frenchman  of  the  provinces  wraps  him- 
self up  in  his  family,  almost  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  outer  world.  In  the  streets  he  salutes 
his  acquaintances  with  a  profound  bow;  on 
New  Year's  Day  he  pays  them  a  visit  of  cere- 
mony, offers  the  ladies  a  packet  of  marrons 
glacis,  or  a  couple  of  oranges ;  but  his  hospita- 
ble table  is  only  open  to  his  children,  who,  as 
long  as  he  lives,  are  at  home  in  the  house. 
One  or  two  intimate  friends  at  most  are 
allowed  to  penetrate  freely  into  the  little 
circle;  the  time  is  killed,  even  killed  by  inches. 
A  garden,  chickens,  ducks,  the  Saturday  pot- 
aii-feu,  such  is  the  extent  of  his  ambition.  All 
this  luxury  can  be  obtained  for  about  a  hun- 
dred dollars  a  month.  When  his  three  per 
cent,  rentes  secure  him  this  sum,  he  retires 
from  business,  and  gives  his  younger  fellow- 
creatures  a  chance. 

His  family  being  generally  small,  he  has  all 
his  dear  ones  around  him,  under  his  roof. 

He  idolizes  children,  and  makes  the  most 
charming  father  in  the  world. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  45 

To  give  a  good  education  to  his  sons,  and  a 
good  dot  to  his  daughters,  to  see  them  happily 
married,  and  keep  them  near  him  after  their 
marriage,  to  bring  up  his  grandchildren,  guide 
their  first  tottering  steps,  make  companions  of 
them,  launch  them  in  life,  and  see  them  all 
assembled  around  his  death-bed,  such  is  the 
life  of  the  good  Joseph  Prudhomme. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ENTERTAINING  NEIGHBORS, 

To  an  impartial  observer,  who  goes  on  his  way 
philosophizing,  and  keeping  his  eyes  open  to 
what  passes  on  either  side  of  the  English 
Channel,  it  is  really  a  very  amusing  sight  to 
see  how  the  two  countries  seem  to  make  it 
their  aim,  each  to  do  the  contrary  of  what  the 
other  does. 

Will  you  have  a  few  rather  diverting  illus- 
trations, taken  right  and  left? 

When  we  are  in  difficulties,  we  take  our 
watch  to  our  aunt;  the  English  take  theirs  to 
their  tmcle. 

In  France,  the  cur^  has  a  certain  number  of 
vicaires  under  his  orders ;  in  England,  it  is  the 
curate  who  is  the  vicar  s  subaltern.  On  this 
point,  there  is  no  doubt  about  our  being  in  the 
right,  since  a  curate  is  a  priest,  ordained   to 

47 


48  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

take  charge  of  a  cure  (the  responsible  care  of 
souls),  whereas  a  vicar  {vicarius)  is  a  priest 
who  takes  the  place  of  another. 

So,  you  see,  that  is  one  to  us! 

In  France,  coachmen  keep  to  the  right;  in 
England,  they  keep  to  the  left.  The  drivers 
of  hansom  cabs  are  seated  far  from  their 
horses,  and  are  obliged  to  use  very  long  whips ; 
but,  as  they  keep  to  the  left,  the  action  of  the 
whip  takes  place  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  and 
thus  peaceful  promenaders  of  the  pavement 
are  spared  many  a  disagreeable  cut. 

Well  done,  John,  one  to  you  this  time! 

The  French  language  possesses  the  two 
words  ^diter  and  publier;  the  English  language 
has  to  edit  and  to  publish.  But  it  must  be  well 
understood  that  it  is  to  publish  which  means 
Miter,  and  to  edit  which  means  publier.  These 
Chinese  puzzles,  so  constantly  met  with,  are 
not  useless,  however;  they  are  the  delight  of 
French  examiners  in  England,  and,  of  course, 
the   despair   of  candidates,   which   is  easy  to 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  49 

understand,  if  one  considers  how  much  easier 
it  is  to  be  examiner  than  examined. 

In  England,  you  "get  wet  to  the  skin,"  in 
France,  we  "get  wet  to  the  bones,"  and  you 
know  that,  when  the  English  go  as  far  as  the 
backbone,  the  French,  not  to  be  outdone,  go 
as  far  as  the  marrow  of  the  bone. 

In  England,  people  are  witty  "to  their  fin- 
gers' end";  in  France,  "to  the  end  of  their 
finger-nails." 

The  index  is  placed  at  the  beginning  of 
English  books,  but  at  the  end  of  French  ones. 

Both  the  French  and  English  languages  have 
aspirate  Jis,  but,  whereas  in  English  it  is  vulgar 
to  drop  them,  in  French  it  is  vulgar  to  sound 
them. 

In  France,  it  is  considered  very  bad  form  to 
call  people  by  their  names  directly  after  being 
intreduced  to  them.  We  simply  address  them 
as  Monsieur,  Madame,  Mademoiselle.  In 
England,  only  shopmen  address  ladies  as 
Madam,  or  Miss.     When  you  have  been  intro- 


5°  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

duced,  you  must  add  a  person's  surname  to  the 
title,  to  Mr.,  Mrs.,  or  Miss,  in  speaking  to  them. 

In  England,  they  "take  French  leave" ;  but  in 
France  we  "take  English  leave,"  and  we  are 
quits. 

The  pound  sterling  contains  twenty  shillings, 
the  shilling  twelve  pence,  the  penny  four 
farthings;  and  if  you  want  to  find  out,  for 
instance,  how  much  the  sum  of  356  pounds,  18 
shillings,  and  9  pence  3  farthings,  has  brought 
in,  at  compound  interest,  in  four  years,  five 
months,  and  eight  days,  at  the  rate  of  3y'V  per 
cent.,  I  would  advise  you  to  procure  a  ream  of 
foolscap  paper  and  set  to  work.  When  you 
have  waded  through  the  sum,  you  will  wonder 
how  it  is  that  the  English,  practical  as  they 
are,  have  not  adopted  the  decimal  system. 
But  then,  you  see,  they  have  adopted  it  in 
France. 

Even  down  to  the  manner  of  holding  a  fork 
or  an  umbrella,  the  two  nations  seem  to  be 
saying  to  each  other:  "You  do  it  that  way? 
very  well,  then,  I  shall  do  it  this  way." 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  5 1 

In  making  an  inventory  of  the  contrasts  in 
the  two  nations,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say 
which  is  oftener  in  the  right.  The  balance  is 
probably  pretty  even. 

The  last  I  will  mention  is  the  difference  in 
the  manner  of  keeping  Good  Friday,  and  in 
this,  I  think,  the  good  mark  ought  to  be  for  us. 

Good  Friday,  being  the  anniversary  of  the 
death  of  our  Savior,  the  French  keep  it  in 
fasting  and  prayer.  On  the  following  Sunday, 
the  day  of  His  Resurrection,  they  rejoice. 
Easter  day,  being  Sunday,  finds  the  English 
people  plunged  in  solemn  silence;  but,  on 
Good  Friday,  they  take  their  holiday,  and  the 
lower  orders  celebrate  their  Redeemer's  death 
by  knocking  down  cocoanuts. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

FRENCH    IMPULSIVENESS    AND     BRITISH 
SANGFROID   ILLUSTRATED   BY  TWO 
REMINISCENCES. 

Two  incidents  that  took  place  lately,  in  Paris 
and  London  respectively,  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate French  impulsiveness  and  English  sang- 
froid. 

The  other  evening  the  opera  "Les  Hugue- 
nots" was  played  at  the  Grand  Opera.  The 
singer  who  took  the  part  of  Marcel  was  out 
of  sorts,  and  sang  flat.  An  old  gentleman, 
seated  in  an  orchestra  stall,  was  observed  to 
be  restless  and  uncomfortable  during  the  per- 
formance. At  the  end  of  the  last  act,  Marcel 
passes  before  the  church,  just  at  the  moment 
when  the  Duke  of  Nevers  and  his  partisans 
come  out  of  it. 

S3 


54  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"Qui  vive  ?  "  cries  the  Duke. 

"Huguenot,"  answers   Marcel,  and  he  falls, 
shot  dead  by  the  followers  of  the  Duke. 

This  part  of  the  opera  had  no  sooner  been 
acted,    than    the    old    gentleman,    who    now  \ 

looked  radiant,  rose  from  his  seat,  put  on  his  \ 

hat,  and,  shaking  his  fist  at  the  dead   hero,  to         cv 
the  great  amusement  of   the   public,  cried   at 
the  top  of  his  voice  : 

"You  donkey,  it  serves  you  right,  you  have 
been  singing  out  of  tune  the  whole  evening." 

And  indignantly  he  left  the  theater.  <J  ^J 


r\! 


* 
*   * 


In  a  beautifully  appointed  English  house, 
afternoon  tea,  served  in  costly  china,  had  just 
been  brought  to  the  drawing-room,  when  the 
mistress  of  the  house  inadvertently  overturned 
the  tea-table.     Without  the  slightest  show  of 

vexation,  without   oh  !    or   all !  Lady  R 

calmly  touched  the  bell,  and,  on  the  appear- 
ance of  the  domestic,  merely  said: 


V 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  55 

"Take  this  away,  and  bring  more  tea." 

"My   dear,"   whispered    Lady    P to   a 

friend,  "she  won't  match  that  china  for  $500." 

* 

-X-    * 

Another  illustration  of  the  latter: 

A  fearful  railway  accident  has  taken  place. 
The  first  car,  with  its  human  contents,  is  re- 
duced to  atoms. 

An  Englishman,  who  was  in  one  of  the  first- 
class  cars  at  the  rear,  examines  the  debris. 

"Oh!"  he  says  to  an  official,  pointing  to  a 
piece  of  flesh  wrapped  up  in  a  piece  of  tweed 
cloth.  "Pick  that  up,  that's  the  piece  of  my 
butler  that  has  got  the  keys  of  my  trunks." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ENGLISH     PHARISEES     AND     FRENCH     CROCO- 
DILES. 

The  French  and  the  English  have  this  very 
characteristic  feature  in  common:  they  can 
stand  any  amount  of  incense ;  you  may  burn 
all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  under  their  noses, 
without  incommoding  them  in  the  slightest 
degree. 

With  this  difference,  however,  in  the  ex- 
tremes. 

The  French  boaster  is  noisy  and  talkative. 
With  his  mustache  twirled  defiantly  upward, 
his  hat  on  one  side,  he  will  shout  at  you,  at 
the  top  of  his  voice  that,*  ''''La  Frmice,  Mon- 

*If  my  memory  serves  me,  it  was  one  of  our  wittiest  vaude- 
villists  who  once  laid  a  wager  that  he  would  get  an  encore,  at 
one  of  our  popular  theaters  on  the  Boulevard,  for  the  following 
patriotic  quatrain  : 

57 


5 8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

sieur,  sera  toiijoiirs  la  Fr-r-rance,  les  Fran^ais 
seront  toujoiirs  Ics  Fr-r-ran^ais"  As  you  listen 
to  him,  you  are  almost  tempted  to  believe, 
with  Thackeray,  "that  the  poor  fellow  has  a 
lurking  doubt  in  his  own  mind  that  he  is  not 
the  wonder  he  professes  to  be." 

But  allow  me  to  say  that  the  British  speci- 
men is  far  more  provoking.  He  is  so  sure  that 
all  his  geese  are  swans ;  so  thoroughly  per- 
suaded of  his  superiority  over  the  rest  of  the 
human  race;  it  is,  in  his  eyes,  such   an  incon- 

"  La  lachete  ne  vaut  pas  la  vaillance, 
Mille  revers  ne  font  pas  un  succes  ; 
La  France,  amis,  sera  toujours  la  France, 
Les  Fran9ais  seront  toujours  les  Fran9ais." 

He  won  the  bet. 

The  London  badaiids  are  at  present  nightly  applauding,  at 
the  Empire  Theater,  a  patriotic  song  which  begins  by  the  fol- 
lowing words  : 

"  What  though  the  powers  the  world  doth  hold 
Were  all  against  us  met. 
We  have  the  might  they  felt  of  old, 
And  England's  England  yet." 

Is  it  not  strange  that  music-hall  jingoism  and  chauvinisme 
should  not  only  be  expressed  in  the  same  manner,  but  by  the 
very  same  words  ? 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  59 

tested  and  incontestable  fact,  that  he  does  not 
think  it  worth  his  while  to  raise  his  voice  in 
asserting  it,  and  that  is  what  makes  him  so 
awfully  irritating,  "don't  you  know?"  He  has 
not  a  doubt  that  the  whole  world  was  made 
for  him ;  not  only  this  one,  but  the  next.  In 
the  meantime — for  he  is  in  no  hurry  to  put  on 
the  angel  plumiige  that  awaits  him — he  con- 
gratulates himself  on  his  position  here  below. 
Everything  is  done  to  add  to  his  comfort  and 
happiness:  the  Italians  give  him  concerts,  the 
French  dig  the  Suez  Canal  for  him,  the  Germans 
sweep  out  his  offices  and  do  his  errands  in  the 
City  of  London  for  $200  a  year,  the  Greeks  grow 
the  principal  ingredient  in  his  plum  pudding. 
The  Americans  supply  his  aristocracy  with  rich 
heiresses,  so  that  they  may  get  their  coats  of 
arms  out  of  pawn.  His  face  beams  with  grati- 
tude and  complacency,  as  he  quietly  rubs  his 
hands  together,  and  calmly  thanks  Heaven  that 
he  is  not  as  other  men  are.  And  it  is  true 
enough  ;  he  is  not. 

"Dear    brother    reader,"     says    Thackeray, 


6o  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"answer  as  a  man  of  honor.  Do  you  think  a 
Frenchman  your  equal?  You  don't,  you  gal- 
lant British  snob,  you  know  you  don't 

Oh,  my  country !  if  I  were  a  Frenchman,  how 
I  would  hate  you!" 

-X-    * 

There  is  one  great  difference  between  our 
two  boasters:  the  Englishman  will  seek,  on  all 
occasions,  to  appear  a  trifle  better  than  he 
really  is — he  never  runs  himself  down  ;  if  he  has 
a  defect  or  two,  he  will  let  you  find  them  out; 
but  the  Frenchman,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  brag- 
gart of  vice.  To  hear  him  joke  about  matri- 
mony, for  instance,  you  would  take  him  for  a 
libertine.  To  listen  to  some  of  the  plays  that 
he  will  applaud,  to  see  the  caricatures  that 
amuse  him,  you  might  come  to  the  conclusion 
that,  in  his  eyes,  marriage  was  not  a  sacred  tie. 
But  do  not  form  your  conclusions  too  hastily. 
Those  jokes,  that  delight  him,  are  often  in 
very  doubtful  taste,  I  admit ;  but  they  are 
jokes  and   nothing  more,  and   if  you  were  to 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  6l 

take  the  plays  and  caricatures  for  real  pictures 
of  French  life,  you  would  be  making  as  great  a 
mistake  as  you  could  well  make. 

Now,  a  Frenchman,  who  had  given  an  ap- 
pointment to  his  wife,  would  be  apt  to  take  on 
a  little  look  of  mystery  as  he  hurried  away 
from  a  friend  in  the  street,  with  the  words : 
"Excuse  my  haste,  I  must  leave  you ;  I  have 
an  appointment."  And  if  you  heard  the  re- 
sponse, "Ah !  you  rascal,  Fll  tell  your  wife," 
accompanied  by  a  knowing  shake  of  the  head, 
you  might  rashly  take  the  pair  for  a  couple  of 
reprobates.  But  once  more  you  would  be 
wrong.  Such  harmless  trivialities — for  trivial- 
ities they  must  be  called — are  indulged  in  by 
men  who  are  the  honor  and  joy  of  their  homes. 

Let  me  tell  you  this:  Whenever  you  hear  a 
Frenchman  speak  ill  of  himself,  do  not  believe 
him,  he  is  merely  boasting.  Be  sure  that 
nothing  is  more  true.  I  shall  never  say  any- 
thing more  true  so  long  as  I  live. 

We  French  hide  our  virtues  and  do  not  like 
to  be  reproached  with  them.     On  this  subject 


62  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

I  might  tell  an  anecdote  which,  if  venerable,  is 
none  the  less  amusing. 

The  AthencEiim,  a  paper  written  by  the  ^lite 
of  the  literary,  scientific,  and  artistic  worlds, 
was  at  a  loss  to  know,  not  long  since,  why 
almost  all  the  heroes  of  French  novels  were 
engineers.  The  reason  is  that  French  engi- 
neers are  all  ex-pupils  of  the  Polytechnic 
School.  I  mean  the  engineers  of  mines,  roads, 
and  bridges.  These  young  men,  having 
passed  their  youth  in  study,  in  order  to  pre- 
pare for  the  most  difficult  examination  we 
have,  naturally  have  the  reputation  of  being 
steady.  The  anecdote  is  this:  Edmond  About 
one  day  wrote:  "Virtuous  as  a  Polytech- 
nician."  The  sentence  displeased  the  young 
mathematicians,  and  they  promptly  took  the 
author  of  it  to  task. 

I  forget  the  exact  words  of  their  reply,  but 
it  ran,  as  nearly  as  I  can  recollect : 

"Dear  Sir :  Please  to  speak  of  what  you 
know  something  about.  We  are  no  more  vir- 
tuous than  you." 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  63 

And  I  can  vouch  for  the  truth  of  this  Httle 
anecdote :  I  was  one  of  those  who  signed  the 
letter. 

Call  a  Frenchman  a  "good  father"  or  "good 
citizen,"  he  will  smile  and  probably  answer 
back,  "You  humbug!"  Yet  he  is  a  good  father 
and  a  good  citizen,  and  he  used  to  be  a  good 
garde-national,  notwithstanding  his  objection 
to  be  told  so.  He  proved  it  during  the  siege 
of  Paris,  although  his  wife  had  never  been  able 
to  look  at  him  in  his  uniform  without  laugh- 
ing. 

Now,  if  the  Englishman,  who  ornaments  his 
buttonhole  with  a  piece  of  blue  ribbon,  does 
not  put  on  two  pieces  more  to  proclaim  iirbi 
et  orbi  that  he  is  a  good  father  and  a  good 
citizen,  it  is  because  the  idea  never  occurred  to 
him — for  nobody  doubts  that,  like  his  neigh- 
bor, he,  too,  is  a  good  father  and  a  good 
citizen. 

Ah !  I  say  once  more,  if  we  only  knew  how 
to  hide  our  faults  as  we  can  hide  our  virtues, 
what  a  respectable  figure  we  could  cut  by  the 
side  of  our  neighbors! 


64  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

The  English  hypocrite  is  the  hypocrite  of 
virtue  and  religion.  English  novelists  have 
exposed  him,  but  have  not  succeeded  in  extin- 
guishing him ;  the  Chadbands,  the  Stigginses, 
the  Podsnaps,  the  Pecksniffs,  all  the  saintly 
British  Tartuffes,  are  as  flourishing  as  ever. 

Moliere  could,  in  his  times,  put  on  the  stage 
such  a  man  as  Tartiiffe;  at  the  present  day  the 
type  is  extinct ;  the  religious  hypocrite  would 
not  go  down  in  France ;  the  character  is  ex- 
ploded. 

Pecksniff,  one  of  the  most  powerful  creations 
of  Dickens,  a  photograph  from  the  life,  had 
named  his  two  daughters,  Mercy  and  Charity. 
In  France,  this  worthy  father  and  the  Misses 
Mercy  and  Charity  would  find  every  door  shut 
in  their  faces.  This  kind  of  vocation  would 
lead  straight  to  the  workhouse. 

It  is  not  that  we  have  no  hypocrites,  how- 
ever. We  keep  the  article,  but  it  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent pattern. 

The  French  hypocrite  is  the  hypocrite  of 
sentiment — the  crocodile. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  65 

It  is  natural  enough  that  it  should  be  so. 

The  hypocrite  does  but  force  the  character- 
istic note  of  his  race.  The  English  are  relig- 
ious (I  mean  church-going),  the  French  senti- 
mental ;  therefore,  the  English  hypocrite  is  the 
hypocrite  of  religion,  and  the  French  hypocrite 
is  the  hypocrite  of  sentiment. 

The  former  will  enter  into  conversation  with 
you  by  expressing  a  hope  that  you  do  not 
concern  yourself  too  much  with  the  things  of 
this  world.  Chadband  presents  himself  at  the 
house  of  a  friend  with  the  salutation:  "Peace 
be  upon  this  house."  Then,  seeing  the  table 
garnished  with  good  things,  he  cries:  "My 
friends,  why  must  we  eat?  To  live.  And 
why  must  we  live?  To  do  good.  It  is  then 
right  that  we  should  eat.  Therefore,  let  us 
partake  of  the  good  things  which  are  set 
before  us."  Thereupon  he  gorges  himself, 
that  he  may  be  able  the  better  to  support 
life,  and  do  the  more  good.  No  French  novel- 
ist would  dare  portray  such  a  personage  in  his 
books. 


66  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

The  French  hypocrite  proceeds  differently. 
He  makes  professions  of  friendship  for  you, 
embraces  you,  enters  into  your  woes  with 
touching  displays  of  feeling;  when  occasion 
seems  to  require,  he  can  shed  a  few  tears,  his 
lachrymal  gland  is  inexhaustible.  As  he  takes 
his  departure,  he  "hopes  things  will  soon  look 
brighter,"  and  offers  you  a  cigar. 

It  is  at  the  funeral  of  a  good  bequeathing 
uncle  that  he  is  especially  edifying.  He  fol- 
lows, with  staggering  steps,  the  remains  of  the 
beloved  defunct ;  he  is  literally  supported  to 
the  grave  by  the  two  friends  on  whose  arms 
he  leans.  Tears  trickle  down  his  cheeks, 
he  is  pale  and  exhausted.  His  handker- 
chief has  a  wide  black  border,  but  smells 
of  musk.  He  tells  you,  with  sobs,  that  his 
uncle  was  a  father  to  him,  and  begs  you  to 
excuse  him,  if  he  finds  it  impossible  to  master 
his  grief. 

On  arriving  home,  he  writes  to  his  uphol- 
sterer to  order  new  furniture. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  6^ 

The  two  kinds  of  hypocrisy,  one  as  loath- 
some as  the  other,  are  clearly  manifested  even 
in  the  criminals  of  the  two  countries. 

The  English  prisoner  at  the  bar  is  not  sub- 
mitted to  examination,  and  thus  the  public  is 
spared  his  professions  of  faith ;  but  the  letters 
he  writes  to  his  friends,  and  to  which  the  news- 
papers generally  give  publicity,  show  him  in 
his  true  light.  "He  believes  in  God;  he  knows 
that  Heaven  will  not  fail  to  confound  the 
infernal  machinations  of  the  wretches  who 
accuse  him." 

The  French  criminal  makes  professions  of 
sentiment  in  the  dock. 

I  extract  the  following  lines  from  the  trial  of 
the  vile  assassins  of  Mme.  Ballerich : 

"Q.  You  loitered  about  the  house  and 
asked  Mme.  Ballerich  for  a  fictitious  person, 
in  order  to  take  stock  of  the  premises,  did  you 
not? 

''A.  I  do  not  deny  that  I  meant  to  commit 


6S  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

a  theft,  but  a  crime  was  far  from  my  thoughts. 
A  crime  is  going  too  far;  I  would  not  dishonor 
my  family ;  I  swear  it  by  my  mother. 

"Q.  You  struck  the  fatal  blow  that  killed 
the  victim.     When  you  left  she  was  still  alive? 

''A.  I  did  not  look  to  see  whether  Mme. 
Ballerich  was  dead.  It  is  bad  enough  to  be 
mixed  up  at  all  in  affairs  of  that  kind !  It 
made  me  feel  sick  to  see  the  blood.  I  suffered 
internally;  I  was  struck  with  remorse  and 
repentance  and  I  thought  of  my  mother. 
(Here  the  prisoner  burst  into  tears.)" 

The  English  assassin,  on  mounting  the  scaf- 
fold, generally  gives  his  friends  rendezvous  in 
the  better  land,  and  implores  his  Maker's  par- 
don. The  French  murderer  implores  the 
pardon  of  his  mother. 

At  this  solemn  moment  both  of  them  prob- 
ably cease  to  be  hypocrites. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

FRENCH   AND    ENGLISH   SOCIAL   FAILURES. 

The  French  social  failure  is  generally  a  radi- 
cal. If  he  had  cared  to  do  as  plenty  of  others 
do  (and  seeing  you  prosperous,  he  accompanies 
this  with  an  expressive  glance),  if  he  had  cared 
to  intrigue  and  curry  favor,  he  too  could  have 
cut  a  figure  in  the  world.  But  unhappily  for 
himself,  he  does  not  know  how  to  disguise  his 
opinions ;  he  is,  according  to  the  formula,  poor 
but  honest. 

It  is  his  pride  that  leads  him  to  avoid  the 
lucky  ones  of  the  earth;  he  has  no  desire  to  be 
taken  for  a  schemer.  If  he  has  lost  all  else, 
honor  still  is  left,  and  this,  his  only  remaining 
treasure,  he  intends  to  preserve  intact. 

He    despises    money,    and    if   he    does   not 

return  that  little  loan  he  borrowed  of  you,  it  is 

69 


70  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

because  he  presumes  that  your  contempt  for 
filthy  lucre  is  equal  to  his  own. 

Yet  the  sight  of  gold  melts  him,  and  there 
flits  across  his  face  a  smile  of  satisfaction, 
mingled,  however,  with  a  tinge  of  sadness  at 
the  thought  of  being  caught  capitulating  with 
the  enemy.  But  to  convince  himself  that  he 
has  lost  none  of  his  independence  of  character, 
he  goes  straightway  and  says  evil  of  you,  so 
that  no  man  shall  say  of  him  that  he  was  cor- 
rupted by  the  loan  of  a  paltry  coin. 

You  will  generally  find  that  he  has  been 
bankrupt  once  or  twice ;  but  as  that  has  not 
made  a  rich  man  of  him,  you  conclude  that,  if 
he  has  not  a  great  love  of  money,  neither  has 
he  a  great  talent  for  business. 

He  lays  his  poverty  at  everyone's  door  but 
his  own.  Society  does  not  understand  him. 
He  shall  go  to  his  grave  without  having  had 
a  chance  of  revealing  himself  to  the  world. 
Meanwhile  he  opens  a  general  agency.  Not 
having  been  successful  with  his  own  affairs,  he 
hopes  to  have  better  luck  with  other  people's. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  7 1 

As  a  rule,  you  find  that  he  has  married  a 
servant  or  a  laundress,  "to  pay  a  debt  he  owed 
to  Society,"  as  he  puts  it.  But  Society,  who 
is  but  a  thankless  jade,  turns  her  back  upon 
him  and  his  wife.  Never  mind,  he  has  done 
his  duty.  Upon  this  point  he  finds  nothing  to 
reproach  himself  with.  Some  men  marry  for 
money ;  thank  Heaven,  he  is  not  one  of  that  sort. 

Let  anything  you  undertake  prove  a  suc- 
cess, and  you  will  hear  him  say  that  he  had 
thought  of  doing  it  long  ago ;  it  was  only  his 
idea  stolen  from  him.  But  there's  the  rub; 
what  is  the  use  of  ideas,  when  one  has  no 
capital? 

And,  instead  of  setting  to  work  to  get  a 
capital,  he  writes  anonymous  letters. 

He  occasionally  talks  of  committing  suicide, 
of  throwing  himself  into  the  sea;  but  this  idea 
of  his  has  been  stolen  so  many  times  over  that 
he  gives  it  up  in  disgust. 

When  he  does  die,  it  will  be  of  spite. 

You  will  survive  the  loss  of  him  without 
difficulty. 


72  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

His  presence  is  a  hair  in  your  soup,  a  crumb 
in  your  bed. 

The  French  social  failure  is  not  uncom- 
monly a  philosopher,  and  even  keeps  a  spark 
of  facetiousness  through   all   his   misfortunes. 

About  ten  years  ago,  1  was  talking  one  day 
with  a  Frenchman,  who  had  been  established 
in  England  some  time.  Established !  I  am 
getting  facetious,  too,  you  see. 

I  was  erroneously  maintaining  to  him  that 
imprisonment  was  still  inflicted  in  England  for 
debt. 

"You  are  mistaken,  I  can  assure  you,"  said 
he. 

"I  do  not  think  so,"  I  replied. 

"Imprisonment  for  debt  was  abolished  two 
years  ago." 

"Are  you  quite  sure?"  said  I,  seeing  him  so 
positive. 

"  Par  bleu  I  I  ought  to  know  better  than 
you,"  he  said.     "I  was  the  last  to  come  out." 

The  English  social  failure  is  much  more 
humble  than  his  like  in  France,  for  the  simple 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  73 

reason  that,  in  France,  poverty  is  no  crime, 
while  in  England,  as  in  America,  it  is.  Apart 
from  this  the  two  types  do  not  differ  much. 

In  the  commercial  world,  the  English  social 
failure  is  an  agent  of  some  sort ;  generally 
wine  or  coal.  In  the  exercise  of  his  calling,  he 
requires  no  capital,  nor  even  a  cellar.  He  not 
unfrequently  entitles  himself  General  Agent: 
this,  when  the  wreck  is  at  hand.  Such  are  the 
straws  he  clutches  at ;  if  they  should  break,  he 
sinks,  and  is  heard  of  no  more,  unless  his  wife 
comes  to  the  rescue,  by  setting  up  a  lodging 
house  or  a  boarding  school  for  young  ladies. 
There,  once  more  in  smooth  water,  he  wields 
the  blacking  brush,  makes  acquaintance  with 
the  knife  board,  or  gets  in  the  provisions.  In 
allowing  himself  to  be  kept  by  his  wife,  he 
feels  he  loses  some  dignity,  but  if  she  should 
adopt  any  airs  of  superiority  over  him,  he  can 
always  bring  her  to  a  sense  of  duty  by  beating 
her. 

In  the  republics  of  art  and  letters,  you  gen- 
erally find  him  playing  the  part  of  critic,  con- 


74  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

soling  himself  for  his  failures  by  abusing  the 
artists  who  sell  their  pictures,  or  the  authors 
who  sell  their  books.  For  these  he  knows  no 
pity.  He  can  all  the  more  easily  abuse  his 
dear  brethren  of  the  quill  or  brush  that  he  has 
not  to  sign  his  invectives ;  his  prose  is  anony- 
mous. Once  a  week,  in  the  columns  of  some 
penny  paper,  he  can,  with  perfect  impunity, 
relieve  his  heart  of  the  venom  it  contains. 

The  mud  he  scatters  has  one  good  quality — 
it  does  not  stain ;  one  fillip  .  .  .  and  it  is 
gone. 

Here  is  a  sample  of  this  kind  of  production. 
I  extract  it  from  a  paper  as  pretentious  as  it  is 
little  read : 

"The  fortunate  writer  woke  up  one  morning 
to  find  himself  famous,  and  his  book  on  a  tide 
of  popularity  which  carried  it,  in  one  year, 
through  some  fifty  editions.  A  grand  stroke 
of  this   kind    insures   the  ambition    to  repeat 

it His   new    book    bears    throughout 

manifest  evidences  of  having  been  scrambled 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  75 

through,  and  put  together  anyhow,  in  order  to 
recapture  the  notice  and  the  money  of  the 
public^ 

Now  Carlyle,  Avho  was  very  sensitive  to 
adverse  criticism,  used  to  call  these  revengeful 
failures  in  literature  "dirty  puppies,"  and  it 
was  kind  of  him  to  so  far  notice  them. 

But  if  I  were  the  author  in  question,  an 
answer  somewhat  in  the  following  style  would 
rise  to  my  pen  : 

"  My  Dear  Sir :  I  admire  your  indepen- 
dence and  your  contempt  for  the  money  and  the 
favors  of  the  public.  But  one  question  I  would 
ask  of  you  :  Why  do  you  send  your  invectives  to 
the  wrong  address?  If  I  am  famous,  as  you  are 
pleased  to  say,  without  believing  it  any  more 
than  myself,  do  not  lay  the  blame  upon  me,  my 
dear  sir;  lay  it  rather  upon  that  'fool  of  a  public' 
who  is  silly  enough  to  prefer  my  scribblings  to 
your  chefs-d'a^iivre.  Not  for  the  world  would 
I  say  anything  that  might  be  disagreeable  to 
you,  but  I  would  fain  remind  you  that,  ever 
since  the  days  of  Horace,  the  authors  of  books 


76  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

that  sell  have  never  been   appreciated  by  the 
authors  of  the  books  that  do  not." 

The  bitterness  of  Mr.  Tommy  Hawk's  criti- 
cisms forms  a  curious  contrast  with  the  fairness 
and  good-nature  of  the  serious  English  critic. 

The  latter  possesses  a  large  stock  of  good 
sense,  good  taste,  learning,  and  independence. 
He  can  blend  counsel  and  encouragement,  and 
he  has  a  conscience;  that  is  to  say,  as  much 
aversion  to  disparaging  as  to  flattering.  The 
same  author  whom  he  praised  yesterday  be- 
cause his  work  was  worthy  of  praise,  he 
blames  to-day  because  his  work  is  deserving  of 
blame ;  he  is  no  respecter  of  persons. 

Criticism  should  be  taken  with  thanks  and 
deference,  if  fair  and  kind ;  with  deference  and 
no  thanks,  if  fair  but  unkind ;  with  silence  and 
contempt,  if  insulting  and  unfair. 

So  says  D'Alembert. 

May  I  now  permit  myself  to  indulge  in  a 
little  personality? 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  77 

Mr.  George  Augustus  Sala,  the  wittiest  and 
best-humored  of  English  journahsts,  in  one  of 
his  interesting  Echoes  of  the  Week,  not  long 
ago  accused  a  book  of  my  own,  after  paying  it 
one  or  two  compliments,  of  being  as  full  of 
blunders  as  an  egg  is  full  of  meat. 

Now,  could  Mr.  George  Augustus  Sala,  with 
his  knowledge  of  London  dairy  produce,  pay 
my  book  a  more  witty  and  graceful  compli- 
ment? 


CHAPTER  X. 

HIGH-LIFE  ANGLO-FRENCH  GIBBERISH  AS  USED 
IN   FRANCE   AND   IN   ENGLAND. 

Languages  have  this  in  common  with  many 
mortals;  when  they  borrow  they  do  not 
return.  This  is  perhaps  a  happy  thing,  for 
when  borrowed  words  do  get  returned,  good 
Heavens !  what  a  state  they  come  home  in ! 

We  thought  we  were  doing  a  fine  thing  in 
taking  the  words  ticket,  jockey,  budget,  tunnel, 
fashion  from  the  EngHsh.  They  are,  however, 
but  French  words  mutilated,  and  there  is  not 
much  to  be  proud  of  in  reacquiring  them. 
The  EngHsh  had  borrowed  of  us  e'tiqueter, 
jacquet  {petit  Jacques),  bougette  {the  kings  privy 
purse),  faqon.  Better  they  had  kept  them. 
Up  to  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  by  reason 
of  war  and  conquest  that  both  conquerors  and 
conquered  saw  their  vocabularies  invaded  by 


8o  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

foreign  words;  but  is  it  not  strange  that  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  century  of  civilization, 
so-called,  peace  between  England  and  France 
should  bring  about  such  a  disastrous  result? 

Formerly  we  used  to  dejeuner. 

Nous  avons  change  tout  cela;  nowadays  nous 
liincJions.  Nous  lunchons!  What  a  barbarous 
mouthful,  is  it  not? 

The  word  dejcunei'  signifying  "to  cease  fast- 
ing," or,  as  the  English  say,  "to  breakfast,"  it 
is  wrongly  used  in  speaking  of  a  second  repast. 
Dejeuner  is,  therefore,  irrational ;  but  is  this 
any  excuse  for  making  ourselves  grotesque? 

But,  my  dear  compatriots,  we  are  avenged. 
I  read  in  the  London  Standard  : 

"Prince  Albert  Victor  was  yesterday  admit- 
ted to  the  freedom  of  the  City  of  Lon- 
don   The  royal  party  and  a  large  com- 
pany of  invited  guests  were  afterward  enter- 
tained at  a  dejeuner  in  the  Guildhall,  the  Lord 
Mayor  presiding." 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


Now  that  the  French  lunch,  the  Enghsh 
will  dejeuner  more  than  ever,  of  course. 

Parisian  good  society  no  longer  takes  tea,  it 
"five  o'clocks" ;  and  the  bourgeois  is  beginning 
to  put  at  the  foot  of  his  cards  of  invitation: 

"  On  five  dclockera  a  neiif  Jieures^ 

* 

When  the  English  wish  to  have  a  song  or  a 
piece  of  music  repeated  by  an  artist,  they 
shout :  Encore!  And,  the  following  day,  the 
papers,  in  their  accounts  of  the  performance, 
announce  that  Mademoiselle  So-and-So  was 
encored. 

While  I  am  upon  this  subject,  allow  me  to 
give  you  a  little  sample  of  modern  English; 
it  will  prove  to  you  that  Alexander  Dumas 
was  right,  when  he  pronounced  English  to  be 
only  French  badly  pronounced,  and  I  would 
add,  badly  spelt : 


82  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"The  concert  was  brilliant,  and  the  ensemble 

excelleftt.     Miss    N was  encored,  but   Mr. 

D ,  who   made   his  d^bnt,  only  obtained  a 

sncces  d'estimey 

Go  to  Trafalgar  Square.  Place  yourself  at 
the  foot  of  that  long  Roman  candle,  on  the 
summit  of  which  the  statue  of  Nelson  may  be 
perceived  ...  on  a  clear  day.  Turn  toward 
the  Palace  of  Westminster,  and  you  will  see 
on  your  left  the  Grand  Hotel  and  the  Avenue 
Theatre,  on  your  right  the  Hotel  M^tropole. 
In  your  rear  you  will  find  the  National  Gallery. 
As  all  these  buildings  are  within  a  hundred 
yards  of  Charing  Cross  station,  the  terminus  at 
which  you  alight  on  coming  from  France,  your 
first  impression  will  be  that  it  will  not  take 
you  long  to  learn  to  speak  English.  Ah ! 
dear  compatriots,  be  not  deceived ;  you  little 
guess  the  terrible  perfidiousness  of  that  lan- 
guage. Those  provoking  Britons  seem  to 
have  taken  a  wicked  pleasure  in  inventing  a 
collection  of  unheard-of  sounds,  a  pronuncia- 
tion that  will  fill  your  hearts  with  despair,  and 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  83 

that  puts  them  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  imita- 
tion. 

Thou  mayest  dress  like  an  Englishman,  dear 
compatriot,  eat  roast  beef  like  an  Englishman, 
but,  never,  never  wilt  thou  speak  English  like 
an  Englishman.  Thou  wilt  always  massacre 
his  language;  let  this  console  thee  for  hearing 
him  massacre  thine. 

In  the  Spectator  of  the  8th  of  September, 
171 1,  Addison  wrote: 

"I  have  often  wished,  that  as  in  our  Consti- 
tution there  are  several  persons  whose  business 
it  is  to  watch  over  our  laws,  our  liberties,  and 
commerce,  certain  men  might  be  set  apart  as 
superintendents  of  our  language,  to  hinder  any 
words  of  a  foreign  coin  from  passing  among 
us;  and,  in  particular,  to  prohibit  any  French 
phrases  from  becoming  current  in  this  king- 
dom, when  those  of  our  stamp  are  altogether 
as  valuable.  The  present  war  has  so  adulter- 
ated our  tongue  with  strange  words,  that  it 
would   be   impossible    for   one    of  our   grand- 


84  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

fathers  to  know  what  his  posterity  have  been 
doing,  were  he  to  read  their  exploits  in  a  mod- 
ern newspaper." 

Oh,  Addison,  stop  thy  ears,  and  veil  thy  face ! 

M.  Hippolyte  Cocheris,  the  learned  French 
philologist,  quotes,  in  one  of  his  writings,  a 
piece  of  prose  from  an  aristocratic  pen,  which 
appeared  in  No.  ii6of  th.t  New  Monthly.  It 
runs  as  follows : 

"I  was  ches  inoi,  inhaling  the  odeiir  nmsqiie'e 
of   my   scented    boudoir,  when   the   Prince  of 

Z entered.     He   found   me   in    my    dcvii- 

toiletie,  blas^e  siir  tout,  and  pensively  engaged 
in  solitary  conjugation  of  the  verb  scnmiyer, 
and  though  he  had  never  been  one  of  my  Jiabi- 
tiids,  or  by  any  means  des  notj-es,  I  was  not 
inclined  at  this  moment  of  dilasscvicnt  to  glide 
with  him  into  the  crocchio  restretto  of  familiar 
chat." 

To  edify  his  readers,  and  make  them  appre- 
ciate this  little  masterpiece  of  hybrid  style  at 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  85 

its  due  value,  M.  Cochcris  proceeds  to  trans- 
late the  piece  into  French,  carefully  replacing 
all  the  words  in  italics  by  English  ones,  thus: 

J'etais  at  home,  aspirant  la  musky  smell  de 

mon  private  room,  lorsque  le  Prince  de  Z 

entra.  II  me  trouva  en  simple  dress,  fatigued 
witJi  everytJiing,  tristement  occup^  a  con- 
juguer  le  verbe  to  be  weary,  et  quoique  je  ne 
I'eusse  jamais  compt^  au  nombre  de  mes  inti- 
mates,  et  qu'il  ne  fut,  en  aucune  fagon  of  our 
set,  j'etais  assez  disposee  a  entrer  avec  lui  dans 
le  croccJiio  restretio  d'une  causerie  famili^re, 

M.  H,  Cocheris  maintains  that  a  French 
author  would  never  dare  to  have  recourse  to 
such  a  literary  proceeding.  Nonsense !  Read 
our  novels,  read  our  newspapers.  At  every 
page,  you  find  mention  made  oi  fashionables  in 
knickerbockers,  who,  dressed  in  ulsters,  repair  to 
the  turf  in  a  dogcart  with  a  groom  and  a  bull- 
dog. They  bring  up  at  a  bar  and  eat  a  slice  of 
pudding  or  a  sandivicJi,  washed  down  with  a 


86  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

bowl  of  punch  or  a  cocktail.  These  gentlemen 
have  the  spleen,  in  spite  of  the  comfortable  life 
they  lead.  In  the  evening,  they  go  and  ap- 
plaud the  humor  of  a  clozvn,  and  call  s)iobs 
those  who  prefer  the  Com^die  Fran^aise. 

If  this  picture  of  the  state  of  things  be 
really  a  true  one,  the  French  Academy,  which 
was  founded  to  look  after  the  mother  tongue 
of  Moli^re,  had  better  lower  its  blinds  and 
burn  tapers. 


CHAPTER  XL 

HUMOR,   WIT,    AND   HIBERNIANISM. 

Humor  is  a  subtle,  witty,  philosophical,  and 
greatly  satirical  form  of  gayety,  the  outcome  of 
simplicity  in  the  character,  that  is  met  chiefly 
among  English-speaking  people. 

Humor  has  not  the  brilliancy,  the  vivacity 
of  French  wit,  but  it  is  more  graceful,  lighter, 
and  above  all  more  philosophic.  A  sarcastic 
element  is  nearly  always  present  in  it,  and  not 
unfrequently  a  vein  of  sadness.  There  is 
something  deliciously  quiet  and  deliberate 
about  humor,  that  is  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  English  character;  and  we  have  been  right 
in  adopting  the  English  name  for  the  thing, 
seeing  that   the    thing   is    essentially   English. 

Germany  has  produced  humorists,  among 
whom  Hoffman  and  Henry  Heine  shine  con- 
spicuously;   but  this  kind   of   playful  raillery 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


is  not  to  be  met  with  in  French  hterature, 
except  perhaps  in  the  Letti'es  provmcialcs  of 
Pascal. 

In  France,  irony  is  presented  in  a  more 
lively  form.  Swift  and  Sterne  are  the  ac- 
knowledged masters  of  British  humor,  as 
Rabelais  and  Voltaire  are  the  personification 
of  French  wit. 

British  humor  does  not  evaporate  so  quickly 
as  French  wit ;  you  feel  its  influence  longer. 
The  latter  takes  you  by  storm,  but  humor 
lightly  tickles  you  under  the  ribs,  and  quietly 
takes  possession  of  you  by  degrees ;  the  bright 
idea,  instead  of  being  laid  bare,  is  subtly  hid- 
den ;  it  is  only  after  you  have  peeled  off  the 
coating  of  sarcasm  lying  on  the  surface,  that 
you  get  at  the  fun  underneath. 

* 

I  believe  Parisian  wit  might  be  correctly 
described  as  a  sudden  perception  and  expres- 
sion of  a  likeness  in  the  unlike.  Here  is  an 
example  of  it ;  an  English  one : 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  89 

Sydney  Smith,  the  most  Parisian  wit  Eng- 
land has  produced,  one  day  asked  the  Corpora- 
tion of  the  City  of  London  to  pave  St.  Paul's 
Churchyard  with  wood.  The  Corporation 
rephed  that  such  a  thing  was  perfectly  imprac- 
ticable. 

"Not  at  all,  gentlemen,  I  assure  you,"  cried 
Sydney  Smith ;  "you  have  only  to  lay  all  your 
heads  together,  and  the  thing  is  done." 

This  is  a  specimen  of  French  wit  in  English. 

Sarcasm  is  one  of  the  most  important  and 
frequent  ingredients  in  French  wit. 

Voltaire  is  the  personification  of  that  kind 
of  wit ;  but  other  countries  have  produced  men 
whose  wit  he  should  have  had  the  modesty  of 
calling  "as  good  as  French."  England  is  fore- 
most among  those  countries.  Douglas  Jer- 
rold,  Sydney  Smith,  Sheridan,  Lord  Eldon,  had 
they  been  born  in  France,  would  have  been 
called  French  wits. 

Two  anecdotes  of  these  men,  to  illustrate  the 
point. 

Sheridan's  son  one  day  came  to  his  fathei 


90  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


and  announced  that  he  would  be  a  candidate 
for  Parhament. 

"Indeed,"  said  Sheridan,  "and  what  are  your 
colors?" 

"I  have  none,"  said  the  son,  "I  am  inde- 
pendent, and  belong  to  no  party.  I  will  stick 
on  my  forehead  :  '  To  be  let!  " 

"Good,"  said  Sheridan,  "and  under  that,  put 
*  Unfurnished!  " 

Lord  Eldon  was  a  great  sufferer  from  gout. 
A  sympathizing  lady  friend  had  made  him  a 
beautiful  pair  of  very  large  slippers  to  wear 
when  his  enemy  troubled  him. 

One  day  his  servant  came  to  him,  and  an- 
nounced that  the  lovely  slippers  were  gone, 
and  had  been  stolen. 

"Well,"  said  Lord  Eldon,  "I  hope  they  will 
fit  the  rascal." 


That  kind  of  wit,  peculiar  to  the  Irish,  and 
commionly  called  Hibernianism,  is  an  apparent 
congruity    in    things    essentially   incongruous. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  9 1 


In  fact,   it    expresses   what    is   apparently   ra- 
tional, but  in  reality  uttterly  irrational. 

Thus,  when  an  Irishman  was  told  that  one 
of  Dr.  Arnott's  patent  stoves  would  save  half 
the  usual  fuel,  he  exclaimed  to  his  wife:  "Ar- 
rah !  thin  I'll  buy  two  and  save  it  all,  my 
jewel." 

We  have  nothing  in  French  wit  that  can 
propel !y  be  compared  to  Hibernianism,  except 
perhaps  the  gascoiinade  at  times,  but  in  the 
gasconnade  there  is  no  humor,  the  essence  of  it 
is  exaggeration. 

"You  often  forget  to  close  the  shutters  of 
the  ground-floor  rooms  at  night,"  an  Irishman 
would  say  to  his  servant;  "one  of  these  fine 
mornings  I  shall  wake  up  murdered  in  my 
bed."  I  do  not  know  that  friend  Paddy  has 
ever  perpetrated  this  one,  but  he  is  quite  cap- 
able of  it. 

* 

During  the  famous  Michelstown  Inquiry,  Pat 
Casey  was  examined.  He  had  seen  the  affray, 
hidden  behind  a  wall. 


92  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"Was  that  brave,  to  hide  behind  a  wall?" 
said  the  lawyer. 

"Well,  sor,"  said  Pat,  "better  be  a  coward 
for  foive  minutes  than  to  be  dead  for  the  rest 

of  your  loife." 

* 

*  * 

The  Hibernianism  is  one  of  the  forms  of 
laziness  of  the  mind,  but  it  is  not  at  all  a  proof 
of  stupidity.  On  the  contrary,  all  those  jokes 
that  the  English  are  fond  of  putting  to  the 
credit  of  the  Irish,  are  only  the  proof  of  a 
certain  overflow  of  intelligence,  two  ideas  issu- 
ing simultaneously  from  the  brain,  and  getting 
confused  into  one.  Dissect  a  Hibernianism, 
and  you  will  generally  find  two  ideas,  perfectly 
sensible,  but  not  agreeing  together. 

I  have  met  with  just  as  many  noodles  in 
England  as  elsewhere.  But  among  all  the 
Irish  that  I  have  come  across,  though  some 
have  been  lazy,  and  many  have  been  bunglers, 
I  have  not  yet  met  one  who  was  not  intelli- 
gent, amiable,  and  witty. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  93 

While  on  this  subject,  I  might  remind  the 
EngHsh  of  the  remark  made  once  by  their  cele- 
brated critic,  John  Ruskin,  at  Oxford:  "Eng- 
lish jokes  are  often  tame,  but  there  is  always 
wit  at  the  bottom  of  an  Irish  bull." 

And  we  might  add : 

Burke,  the  greatest  English  orator  that  ever 
lived,  was  an  Irishman.  Excuse,  I  beg,  this 
Hibernianism  of  mine. 

Lord  Dufferin,  that  ambassador,  and  Lord 
Wolseley,  that  only  general,  whom  England 
has  been  serving  for  the  past  few  years,  roast, 
baked,  and  boiled,  to  her  friends  and  foes 
alike,  the  two  saviors  to  whom  she  invariably 
turns  when  anything  is  going  wrong  ...  or 
is  wanted  to  go  wrong,  are  sons  of  Erin. 

Goldsmith,  the  immortal  author  of  the 
"Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  was  Irish. 

Sheridan,  the  author  of  the  "School  for 
Scandal,"  that  the  English  might  almost  call 
their  only  comedy,  was  Irish. 

Jonathan  Swift  and  Richard  Steele  were 
Irish. 


94  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

The  names  of  Ireland's  great  men  would  fill 
a  long  list. 

One  might  almost  say  that  all  that  is  most 
delicate  and  most  witty  in  English  literature  is 
of  Irish  origin. 

When  we  have  added  that  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  was  an  Irishman,  perhaps  we  shall 
have  succeeded  in  showing  that  England  is 
very  far  yet  from  having  paid  her  little  debt  of 
gratitude  to  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    MAL   DE    MER. 

To  think  that  those  worthy  French  and  Eng- 
lish people,  who  only  live  twenty-one  miles 
from  each  other,  should  not  be  able  to  ex- 
change visits  without  first  making  acquaint- 
ance with  the  mal  de  iner  !  To  think  that  this 
must  be  the  last  impression  that  each  one  takes 
home  with  him ! 

The  nial  de  mer  !  That  uninteresting  com- 
plaint which  awakes  no  pity  in  the  breast  of 
man ! 

*    * 

The  sky  is  serene,  a  light  breeze  gently  fans 
your  cheek,  the  water  in  the  harbor  is  as 
smooth  as  a  sheet  of  glass.  You  timidly  ask 
the  first  sailor  you  come  across  a  question  or 
two  as  to  the  weather  and  the  outlook  for  the 

95 


g6  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

passage — not  for  your  own  reassurance,  for 
you  are  a  pretty  good  sailor,  but  .  .  .  for  a 
friend,  or  .  .  .  for  a  lady  who  is  traveling 
with  you,  and  who  suffers  dreadfully  from 
seasickness.  The  sly  fellow  sees  through  your 
little  ruse,  and  answers,  with  a  serio-comic 
look:  "The  sea,  sir!  like  a  lake,  sir;  like  a 
lake." 

You  feel  reassured.  You  say  to  yourself: 
"Well,  this  time,  at  all  events,  we  shall  have 
a  good  passage;"  and  you  cheerily  pace  the 
deck,  light  of  heart  and  firm  of  foot,  convinced 
that  if  anyone  is  ill,  it  will  not  be  you. 

The  illusion  is  a  sweet,  but  short-lived  one. 

The  whistle  sounds,  the  boat  is  set  in 
motion,  and  gently  and  smoothly  glides  to  the 
mouth  of  the  harbor. 

Everyone  seems  in  the  best  of  spirits,  peo- 
ple chatter  in  groups,  and  handkerchiefs  are 
waved  to  the  friends  who  have  come  down  to 
the  quay  to  see  you  off. 

The  end  of  the  pier  is  passed.  There  you 
are — now  for  it.     You    have   hardly   rounded 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  97 

the  projection  which  would  be  for  you  a  little 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  if  you  were  only  arriving 
instead  of  departing,  when  the  horrible  con- 
struction heaves  heavily  forward,  and  then 
seems  to  sink  away  from  under  your  feet,  mak- 
ing you  feel  as  if  it  were  about  to  leave  you  in 
mid-air,  and  trust  to  your  intelligence  to  catch 
it  again.  You  would  fain  make  your  escape 
without  delay ;  but  everybody  is  there,  so  you 
hold  on  and  look  around.  Little  by  little  the 
faces  grow  serious;  they  begin  to  pale  and 
lengthen  visibly;  the  groups  melt  and  gradu- 
ally disperse.  Everyone  finds  a  pretext  for 
going  below  and  hiding  his  shame. 

"I  am  not  generally  ill  on  the  water,"  you 
remark  to  your  neighbor;  "but  to-day,  I  don't 
know  why,  I  am  not  feeling  quite  up  to  the 
mark;  I  must  have  eaten  something  at  lunch- 
eon that  does  not  agree  with  me Oh ! 

of  course,  it's  that  wretched  lobster  salad !  I 
was  cautioned  not  to  touch  it,  too.  Oh !  la 
gounnandisef'  Confident  of  having  persuaded 
your  traveling  companion  that  you  are  a  toler- 


98  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

ably  good  sailor,  you  too  disappear  below 
.  .  .  and  he,  not  sorry  to  see  you  go,  is  not 
long  in  following  your  example. 

You  go  down  to  the  cabin.  Alas !  that  is 
the  finishing  touch.  The  stuffy,  heavy,  un- 
wholesome atmosphere,  charged  with  a  mixed 
odor  of  tar,  mysterious  cookery,  and  troubled 
stomachs,  brings  your  digestive  apparatus  up 
to  your  throat.  You  feel  stifled.  All  the 
vital  forces  crowd  to  your  head,  and  your  legs 
are  powerless  to  support  you.  You  throw 
yourself  on  your  berth  like  a  log,  and  instkict- 
ively  close  your  eyes,  so  as  not  to  see  that  man 
over  there,  who  is  just  about  to  open  the  ball, 
or  that  other  who  is  looking  at  you  with  a 
mixture  of  amusement  and  pity,  as  he  calmly 
eats  his  chop.  This  creature  is  the  most 
annoying  of  all  your  fellow-passengers.  His 
compassion  for  you  is  insulting.  You  hate  his 
healthy-looking  face,  his  calm,  his  good  appe- 
tite even ;  and  your  indignation  reaches  its 
climax  when  you  see  him  coolly  filling  his  pipe 
and  preparing  to  go  on  deck  and  smoke.     Un- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  99 

able  to  endure  the  atmosphere  of  the  saloon 
any  longer,  you  make  a  grand  effort  and 
return  to  the  upper  regions.  The  first  sight 
that  meets  your  eyes  is  that  man  again,  now 
lavishing  the  most  careful  attentions  upon 
your  wife ;  he  has  been  to  fetch  her  some 
brandy  and  water,  or  a  cup  of  tea.  You  would 
thank  him,  but  you  do  not  care  for  your  wife 
to  see  you  in  your  pitiful  condition.  That 
fellow  is  unbearable,  overpowering.  This  is 
the  only  reflection  suggested  by  his  kindness 
to  your  wife ;  and  away  you  steer,  making  a 
semicircle,  or  rather  two  or  three,  on  your  way 
to  an  empty  bench,  where  you  once  more 
assume  the  horizontal. 

A  friend  comes  to  tell  you  that  your  wife  is 
giving  up  the  ghost  somewhere  in  the  stern  of 
the  ship,  but  you  make  believe  not  to  hear, 
and  only  murmur  through  your  teeth:  "So  am 
I;  what  can  I  do  for  her?" 

You  ask  the  steward  to  send  you  some  tea, 
and  it  comes  up  in  an  earthenware  basin  an 
inch  thick.     You  put  it  to  your  lips.     Horri- 


lOO  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

ble!  What  can  it  possibly  be  made  of,  this 
nauseating  decoction?  The  smell  of  the  flat, 
unpalatable  stuff  makes  you  feel  more  qualm- 
ish than  ever;  the  remedy  is  worse  than  the 
evil. 

Just  as,  at  Monaco,  you  never  fail  to 
come  across  a  gambler  who  has  his  system, 
you  rarely  take  a  sea  journey  without  meeting 
with  the  good  soul  who  has  an  infallible  pre- 
ventive for  seasickness.  "This  succeeds  with 
nine  persons  out  of  ten,"  she  tells  you.  Next 
time  you  cross,  you  try  it,  but  only  to  find 
that  you  are  evidently  tJie  tentJi.  However,  it 
is  not  a  failure  or  two  that  can  shake  the 
blind  confidence  she  has  in  her  remedy,  I  must 
say  it  to  her  credit. 

•55-    * 

Though  there  exists  no  cure  for  this  strange 
evil,  I  think,  notwithstanding,  that  by  the 
exercise  of  a  little  self-control,  one  can  retard 


FRENCH   CROCODILES.  lOl 

the  catastrophe.  At  least  such  is  my  experi- 
ence. 

We  were  one  day  between  Guernsey  and 
Southampton,  just  near  the  Casquettes,  where 
the  Channel  makes  things  very  uncomfortable 
for  you,  if  there  is  the  least  wind  blowing.  I 
had  curled  myself  up  in  a  corner  in  the  stern 
of  the  boat  and  was  preparing  to  feel  very 
sadly.  Up  came  two  French  ladies,  appear- 
ing, like  myself,  to  have  strayed  that  way  in 
search  of  solitude. 

"Saperloite,"  thought  I,  "here  are  women 
looking  at  you,  my  boy;  be  a  man." 

I  fixed  my  eyes  on  a  point  of  the  horizon, 
and  no  doubt  appeared  to  my  neighbors  to  be 
plunged  in  profound  contemplation. 

The  ladies  took  up  their  position  not  very 
far  from  me,  and  began  to  heave  very  heavy 
sighs.     I  looked  at  them.     They  were  green. 

"Ah,  Monsieur!"  said  one  of  them  to  me, 
"how  fortunate  you  are,  not  to  be  ill!" 

I  was  saved,  for  the  moment  at  all  events. 
It   put    fresh    strength    into    me.       Forcing   a 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


smile,  and  gathering  up  my  courage,  I  had  the 
impudence  to  affirm  that  I  felt  pretty  well. 
The  effort  of  the  will  had  the  power  to  keep 
the  evil  in  check. 

At  that  moment  I  understood  how  you  can 
make  a  hero  of  a  frightened  soldier  by  telling 
him  that  bravery  is  written  in  his  eyes. 

*  * 

A  man  who  crosses  the  Channel  several 
times  a  year  is  pretty  sure  to  have  one  or  two 
little  anecdotes  of  the  inal  de  vier,  and  its  con- 
sequences, in  a  corner  of  his  memory. 

Here  is  one  chosen  at  random : 

It  was  between  Boulogne  and  Folkestone, 
on  a  mare  contrarium. 

Seated  quietly  on  deck,  I  was  just  dozing 
over  a  book,  the  author  of  which  I  will  not 
name,  since  his  volume  had  less  power  over 
my  senses  than  the  rolling  of  the  boat.  I  was 
presently  brought  back  to  consciousness  by 
the  weight  of  a  head,  laid  on  my  shoulder. 
I  opened  my  eyes,  looked   out  of  the   corners 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  T03 


of  them ;  the  head  was  a  very  pretty  one, 
upon  my  word. 

What  was  I  to  do? 

To  stay  would  be  compromising;  to  get 
away  suddenly  would  be  ungallant  and  per- 
haps not  without  danger,  for  the  poor  little 
head  might  fall  against  the  bulwarks  of  the 
boat.  I  reclosed  my  eyes,  and  made  believe 
not  to  have  noticed  anything.  All  at  once  I 
heard  a  sweet  voice  in  my  ear: 

"O  Arthur!  What  shall  I  do?  If  you 
only  knew  how  sick  I  feel.  Oh !  I  must  lean 
my  head  on  your  shoulder;  you  don't  mind, 
do  you?" 

The  situation  was  getting  alarming.  I  kept 
my  eyes  closed,  so  as  not  to  scare  away  the 
poor  creature,  who  was  evidently  at  sea,  in 
more  senses  than  one.  I  kept  quiet,  buried  in 
my  wraps  and  traveling  cap,  and,  without  mov- 
ing my  head,  just  murmured,  "I  am  really 
awfully  sorry,  madam,  but  I  am  not  Arthur." 

This  was  startling  enough  in  all  conscience. 
I  quite  expected  a  small  explosion ;  apologies, 


I04  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

little  screams,  a  fainting  fit,  perhaps.  Hap- 
pily, however,  on  board  ship,  dignity  is  laid 
aside.  Certainly,  on  dry  land,  this  lady  could 
not  have  done  less  than  faint,  if  it  were  only 
for  the  sake  of  appearances.  But  a  la  incr, 
comine  a  la  vicr. 

So  there  was  no  fuss  or  fainting;  for  that 
matter  my  poor  fellow-traveler  had  not  the 
strength  to  move.  I  rose,  helped  her  to  as- 
sume a  more  comfortable  position,  placed  a 
cushion  under  her  head,  and  covered  her  with 
my  rug.  Then,  having  called  the  steward 
and  recommended  Mme.  Arthur  to  his  care, 
there  remained  nothing  but  to  decamp,  and 
quit  the  thankless  I'ole  of  caretaker  of  some- 
body else's  wife. 

When  we  got  into  harbor  at  Folkestone, 
Arthur  suddenly  made  his  appearance  from 
somewhere  in  the  lower  regions.  He  was 
my  very  double — the  sam.e  size,  the  same 
dress I  saw  through  the  misadventure. 

On  joining  the  London  train,  I  found  my- 
self in  the   same   compartment   as  the  young 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  1 05 

couple.  Arthur  kneiv  all,  as  they  say  in  sen- 
sational novels,  and  we  had  a  hearty  laugh 
together  over  the  affair.  Arthur  was  as  gay  as 
a  lark.  I  attributed  his  mirth  to  the  fact  of 
his  having  left  the  sea  behind,  and  to  his  find- 
ing himself  once  more  on  terra  firma  with  his 
beloved  one.  I  found  in  the  course  of  conver- 
sation that  he  had  only  been  married  the  day 
before,  and  the  happy  pair  had  come  over  to 
hide  their  bliss  in  the  fogs.  They  intended 
passing  their  honeymoon  in  London.  It 
would  have  been  sacrilege.  I  dissuaded  them 
from  their  project,  and  induced  them  to  go  to 
Scotland,  to  see  its  lakes  and  mountains,  and 
the  bracken  lit  up  with  autumnal  gold. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

BRITISH     PHILOSOPHY     AND     FRENCH     SENSI- 
TIVENESS. 

British  philosophy ! 

Why  not  English  Philosophy  ? 

The  difference  is  enormous.  If  I  were  to 
publish  a  treatise  on  the  English  philosophers, 
Bacon,  Locke,  Stuart  Mill,  Herbert  Spencer, 
Frederic  Harrison,  etc.,  I  should  call  my  work: 
"A  Study  of  English  Philosophy."  But  if  I 
said  to  you  that  the  English,  not  having  suc- 
ceeded in  regaining  Khartoum,  contented 
themselves  with  regaining  the  road  to  Eng- 
land, I  should  add,  that  is  British  philosophy. 

You  would  not  say,  "History  of  British  Lit- 
erature," you  say,  "History  of  English  Litera- 
ture." 

There  is  something  serio-comic  about  the 
word    "British,"    or    something    chauvinistic. 


Io8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

You  would  be  right  in  saying  "British  army, 
British  soldiers."  The  lady  who  fills  the  news- 
papers with  her  outcries  against  the  few  nudi- 
ties exhibited  in  the  Academy  every  season,  is 
known  only  by  the  name  of  "British  Matron." 

An  Englishman  only  calls  his  fellow-country- 
men "Britons"  when  he  is  half  laughing  at 
them.  When  he  says,  "We  Britons,"  he  is  not 
quite  serious;  on  the  contrary,  when  he  says, 
"We  Englishmen,"  his  face  reflects  the  feeling 
of  respect  with  which  the  sound  of  his  name 
nispires  him. 

The  "English  public,"  is  good  society;  the 
"British"  public  means  the  common  run  of 
mortals  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

British  philosophy !  that  philosophy  that 
makes  us  like  what  we  have  when  we  cannot 
have  what  we  like;  that  philosophy  taught  by 
that  good  mother,  and  incomparable  teacher, 
whose  name  is  Necessity. 

Alas,  we  French  people  do  not  possess  this 
kind  of  philosophy.  I  wish  we  did.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  we  are  the  most  absurdly  sens!- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  1 09 

tivc,  thin-skinned  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  We  do  not  know  how  to  take  a  kick, 
much  less,  make  use  of  it.  I  mean  a  kick  in 
the  figurative  sense;  the  one  that  leaves  no 
trace,  and  does  not  prevent  us  from  sitting  at 
our  case. 

But,  if  the  Englishman  knows  how  to  take 
it,  do  you  believe  he  feels  it  the  less  for  that? 
Be  not  deceived  on  the  point.  He  exercises 
control  over  himself.  He  does  not  give  it 
back  on  the  spot,  but  stores  it  up,  rubs  the 
injured  part,  applies  a  little  cold  cream,  if  nec- 
essary, and  awaits  the  moment  when  he  will 
be  able  to  return  it  with  interest.  Such  is  the 
difference  between  the  two  men.  To  my 
mind,  the  Englishman  is  the  more  intelligent 
of  the  two. 

Success  turns  our  heads  in  France,  reverses 
discourage  and  demoralize  us;  we  know  neither 
how  to  profit  by  victory,  nor  put  up  with  de- 
feat. In  victory,  we  see  only  glory;  in  defeat, 
only  disgrace. 

Thus  we  are  led  to  make  war  to  serve  dynas- 


no  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

tic  interests ;  we  go  to  the  Crimea  for  the 
English,  who  do  not  go  to  Germany  for  us;  we 
set  the  Italian  nation  on  its  feet,  and  to-day, 
see  it,  in  its  profound  gratitude,  preferring 
Germany  to  ourselves. 

*  * 

Criticism  exasperates  instead  of  benefiting 
us,  and  even  occasionally  amusing  us.  We 
hate  our  enemies,  instead  of  being  grateful  to 
them  for  the  good  they  do  us ;  for  if  we  owe 
part  of  our  success  to  our  friends,  we  owe  a 
still  greater  part  to  our  enemies. 

There  are  two  ways  of  causing  an  animal  to 
advance — whether  that  animal  be  an  artist,  a 
writer,  or  a  prime  minister — first,  by  kind 
encouragements  ...  in  front ;  secondly,  by 
something  less  pleasant  ...  on  the  other  side. 

I  firmly  believe  the  second  process  to  be  the 
more  efficient  of  the  two. 

It  is  only  indifference  that  kills;  in  religion, 
in  love,  in  politics,  in  literature,  in  everything. 

Christianity  came  out  of  the  Roman  arenas, 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  lU 

English  Protestantism  out  of  the  Smithfield 
fires ;  and  many  a  demagogue  owed  his  suc- 
cess, under  the  Second  Empire,  to  the  few 
months'  imprisonment  at  Ste.  P^lagie  that  the 
Imperialist  judges  were  silly  enough  to  con- 
demn him  to. 

Enemies?  Why,  they  are  our  fortune. 
When  I  hear  a  man  spoken  of  after  his  death 
as  never  having  had  any  enemies,  as  a  Chris- 
tian I  admire  him,  but  I  also  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  dear  fellow  must  have  been  a 
very  insignificant  member  of  the  community. 

If  you  do  something  new,  you  make  cz-emies 
cf  all  the  red  tapeists;  if  you  do  something 
intelligent,  you  make  enemies  of  all  the  fools; 
if  you  are  successful,  you  make  enemies  of  all 
the  army  of  failures,  the  misunderstood,  the 
crabbed,  and  the  jealous;  but  these  little  out- 
bursts of  hatred,  one  as  diverting  as  the  other, 
are  reall}-  so  many  testimonials  in  your  favor. 

If  you  send  in  your  application  for  some 
vacant  post,  and  you  succeed  in  obtaining  it, 
you  may  be   sure  that  there  will  be  but   one 


112  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

candidate  who  will  consider  that  the  election 
was  made  according  to  merit;  yourself.  The 
rest  will  cry  out  in  chorus  that  your  luck  is 
something  wonderful.  Luck!  What  a  drudge 
this  poor  word  is  made  of!  The  privations 
you  have  imposed  upon  yourself,  and  the  long 
nights  that  you  have  devoted  to  work,  are 
luck.  Luck,  as  a  great  English  moralist  puts 
it,  means  rising  at  six  in  the  morning;  luck 
means  spending  tenpence  when  you  earn  a 
shilling;  luck  means  minding  your  own  busi- 
ness and  not  meddling  with  other  people's. 

The  Englishman  knows  that  it  falls  to  every- 
one's lot  to  be  criticised,  and  he  makes  up  his 
mind  to  endure  it.  He  even  has  a  certain 
admiration  for  those  who  criticise  and  rally 
him,  if  the  operation  is  performed  with  a  little 
dexterity.  Violent  criticism  is  the  only  kind 
he  has  a  contempt  for.  "The  fellow  loses  his 
temper,"  says  he ;  "he  is  a  fool,  who  proves 
that  his  cause  is  a  bad  one ;"  and  he  goes  on 
his  way  unconcerned.  So,  while,  in  Paris,  a 
Republican  and  a  Bonapartist,  who  meet  on 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  113 

the  Boulevards,  will  look  daggers  at  each 
other;  a  Liberal  and  a  Conservative,  who 
meet  in  Pall  Mall,  will  shake  hands  and  go  and 
dine  together  amicably.  They  both  know  that 
it  is  all  humbug.  After  dinner,  they  repair  to 
the  House  of  Commons;  one  takes  his  seat  on 
the  left,  the  other  on  the  right  of  the  Speaker, 
who  ought  rather  to  be  called  the  Spoken  toy 
since  everyone  addresses  his  remarks  to  him, 
but  he  very  rarely  opens  his  lips. 

Never  any  insults  in  this  Parliament.  You 
will  never  hear  any  such  phrase  as  "the  honor- 
able member  has  lied,"  but  rather,  "the  hon- 
orable member  has  just  made  a  remark  which 
is  scarcely  in  accordance  with  strict  truth," 
These  euphemisms  are  the  soul  of  the  English 
language,  the  outcome  of  the  cool  British  tem- 
perament. Violent  language  has  not  the  least 
power  to  move  an  Englishman  to  wrath — it 
rather  excites  his  pity.  In  an  English  club, 
two  members  who  had  called  each  other 
"liars,"  would  find  their  names  promptly 
struck  off  the  roll,  and  there  would  be  an  end 


114  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

of  the  matter.  In  France  they  would  fight  a 
duel. 

The  following  anecdote  shows  how  ready 
the  English  are  to  acknowledge  their  little 
failings. 

I  was  speaking  of  the  English  spirit  of 
colonization  one  day  at  a  lecture,  and  in  the 
course  of  my  remarks  on  the  subject,  I  took 
the  liberty  of  saying,  not  without  a  slight 
touch  of  satire : 

"When  John  Bull  makes  colonies,  it  is  for  the 
good  of  the  natives." 

"For  their  goods!"  cried  a  jolly  Briton  from 
the  gallery. 

He    evidently    thought    me    too    indulgent. 

By  the  manner  in  which  my  interrupter  was 

applauded,    I   judged    that    he    had    properly 

seized  and  expressed  the  general  feeling  of  the 

audience. 

* 

It  is  in  adversity  that  the  Englishman  is  to 
be  admired.     If  he  is  defeated,  he  puts  a  good 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  Il5 

face  upon  it ;  he  accepts  his  defeat,  and  makes 
the  best  of  it.  "I  have  proved  that  I  can 
fight,"  he  says;  "why  should  I  fight  a  hopeless 
battle?"  If  the  door  must  give  way  to  the 
burglars,  he  does  not  wait  for  them  to  break  it 
open,  he  opens  it  himself;  if  he  cannot  save 
his  furniture,  he  saves  his  door;  it  is  so  much 
gained. 

* 

It  is  thanks  to  this  practical  philosophy 
that,  on  the  day  after  an  election,  you  see  all 
the  newspapers  express  their  satisfaction  at 
the  result.  The  winning  side  has  always 
gained  a  more  brilliant,  more  decisive,  victory 
than  ever,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  difificulties 
that  had  to  be  overcome.  The  losing  side 
invariably  gains  a  moral  victory,  and  this  is 
proved  hy  a  -\-  b. 

When,  after  the  defeat  at  Majuba  Hill,  Eng- 
land abandoned  the  conquest  of  the  Transvaal, 
a  feat  which  would  have  been  mere  child's  play 
to  her,  but  which  would  probably  have  aroused 


Ii6  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

some  indignation  in  Europe,  Mr.  Gladstone 
announced  that,  after  all,  the  Boers  were  only 
fighting  for  their  independence,  and  it  was  not 
seemly  for  generous  England  to  annex  by 
force  a  country  that  wished  to  be  free,  and 
had  given  such  proof  of  valor, 

A  little  masterpiece  in  its  way,  this  speech ! 

What  a  strange,  ungrateful  animal  is  man ! 
What  respect  he  has  for  his  conquerors! 
What  contempt  for  those  he  can  conquer! 
When  he  speaks  of  the  lion  that  devours  him, 
or  the  eagle  that  tears  his  flesh,  he  is  ready  to 
take  off  his  hat  to  them ;  when  he  speaks  of 
the  donkey  that  renders  him  great  service, 
or  of  the  goose  that  furnishes  him  a  good 
dinner,  a  pen  to  write  with,  and  a  bed  to  lie 
on,  he  cannot  sufficiently  express  his  con- 
tempt^ 

Do  you  remember,  dear  American  friends, 
how,    some    four    years    ago,    a   certain    Lord 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  117 

Sackville,  British  minister  in  Washington,  was 
given  twenty-four  hours  to  leave  the  country? 
Never  had  John  Bull  been  administered  a  bet- 
ter kick  before.  Did  he  go  to  war  with  Amer- 
ica? Oh,  no.  The  prime  minister  of  England 
declared  that  you  could  not  expect  "gentle- 
manly manners  from  American  politicians," 
and  John  Bull  was  satisfied,  and  he  set  about 
bullying  little  Portugal  about  some  South 
African  bit  of  territory. 

% 

When  the  Englishman  meets  with  his  supe- 
rior, he  is  ready  to  admit  it.  If  he  be  jealous 
of  him,  he  will  not  expose  himself  to  ridicule 
by  showing  it.  He  does  not  shun  the  prosper- 
ous man,  he  cultivates  his  acquaintance.  He 
is  not  necessarily  a  schemer  for  that ;  where 
there  is  no  meanness  there  is  no  scheming. 
He  acknowledges  all  the  aristocracies ;  the 
aristocracy  of  birth,  the  aristocracy  of  money, 
and   the    aristocracy   of    talent ;    and    I    only 


Il8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

blame  him  for  one  thing,  which  is  that  he  has 
much  less  admiration  for  the  third  of  these 
than  for  the  other  two.  At  a  public  dinner,  in 
England,  you  may  see  in  the  places  of  honor, 
on  either  side  of  the  chairman,  one  or  two 
lordlings,  then  the  wealthy  guests  .  .  .  then, 
but  much  farther  down,  the  literary  men, 
artists,  and  other  small  fry. 

We  French  people  have  not  the  bump  of 
veneration  very  much  developed,  it  is  true; 
but  we  have  an  admiration,  approaching  vener- 
ation, for  talent  and  science,  and  the  same 
Frenchman  who  takes  no  notice  of  a  duke,  will 
turn  to  get  a  second  look  at  a  great  literary 
man  or  a  savant.  The  commonplace  English- 
man, who  humbles  himself  before  a  village 
squire,  or  a  big  banker,  takes  his  revenge  when 
he  meets  the  schoolmaster  who,  in  France, 
would  be  a  professeur,  but  who,  in  England, 
were  he  a  double  first  of  Oxford,  an  ex-scholar 
of  Balliol  College,  goes  through  life  by  the 
name  of  schoolmaster ;  rinse  your  mouth 
quickly. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  Up 

In  England,  social  disparity  excites  no  jeal- 
ousy. On  the  contrary,  the  noble  and  the 
wealthy  are  popular. 

In  France,  we  have  given  up  admitting 
superiority  since  our  walls  have  been  orna- 
mented with  the  announcement  that  all 
Frenchmen  are  brethren,  free  men,  and  equals. 
This  rage  for  equality  degenerates  into  jealousy 
of  all  superiority.  In  fact,  the  French  are  all 
equal  to  their  superiors,  and  most  of  them 
superior  to  their  equals.  As  soon  as  superi- 
ority clearly  manifests  itself,  in  political  life,  in 
literature,  in  the  fine  arts,  anywhere,  it  is 
ostracized. 

I  was  talking  one  day  with  a  Frenchman, 
who  still  massacres  the  English  language, 
although  he  has  lived  in  this  country  more 
than  twenty  years.  In  the  course  of  conversa- 
tion I  named  a  compatriot  of  ours.  "Now, 
tJiere  is  a  man,"  said  I,  "who  speaks  English 
admirably." 


120  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"Admirably?"  cried  he,  "well,  yes,   he  does 
.  .  .  like  the  rest  of  us." 

This  is  a  truly  French  retort. 


Jealousy  is  the  commonest  and  most  charac- 
teristic failing  of  the  French. 

With  us,  jealousy  is  not  only  the  stamp  of 
mediocrity,  as  it  is  everywhere  else;  it  is  a 
malady  that  our  greatest  men  have  been 
tainted  with.  The  acrimonious  and  contempt- 
ible polemic  that  Bossuet  and  F^nelon  en- 
gaged in,  the  implacable  hatred  of  Voltaire 
toward  Rousseau,  are  but  two  instances  of  it ; 
the  history  of  French  literature  abounds  with 
others.  Our  Parisian  newspapers  are  daily 
filled  with  polemics  and  personalities. 

In  England,  everyone  minds  his  own  busi- 
ness, and  does  not  trouble  himself  about  what 
his  neighbor  says  or  does. 

May  I  be  allowed  to  make  another  compar- 
ison here? 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


If  the  Englishman  is  less  jealous  than  the 
Frenchman  of  the  success  of  his  fellow-crea- 
ture, it  is  because  he  often  does  not  attribute 
it  to  the  same  causes. 

The  Englishman  maintains,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  that  a  man  owes  his  successes  far 
more  to  his  character  than  to  his  talent.  If  I 
am  not  mistaken,  it  was  Thomas  Carlyle  who 
laid  down  this  rule  of  British  philosophy. 

This  philosophical  proposition  is  very  com- 
forting to  the  misunderstood;  to  hint  to  a 
man  that  he  is  less  talented  than  another,  is  to 
vex  him ;  on  the  contrary,  to  tell  him  that  he 
has  less  shrewdness,  is  almost  to  pay  him  a 
compliment. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   FRENCH    SNOB. 

It  would  be  imprudent,  not  to  say  impudent, 
to  attack  the  subject  of  English  snobs.  There 
are  themes  which  seem  marked  "Dangerous 
ground."  If  the  French  want  to  know  all 
about  English  snobs,  they  must  turn  to  Thack- 
eray, who  has  completely  exhausted  the  sub- 
ject. 

* 

■X-    * 

The  snob  is  the  man  who  is  utterly  destitute 
of  nobility.  I  should  like  to  explain  the  word 
etymologically  thus :  Snob  from  S.  Nob.  {Sine 

Nobilitate). 

* 

*  * 

The  snob  is  the  man  who  is  ashamed  of  his 
origin,  and  wishes  to  occupy  a  better  place  in 
society  than   he  is  entitled  to;    who    hires  a 


124  ENGLISH  rilAKISEES  AND 

couple  of  flunkeys  by  the  evening,  to  make 
folks  believe  he  keeps  a  grand  establishment ; 
or  who  lowers  his  blinds  from  the  middle  of 
July  to  the  middle  of  September,  to  make  it 
appear  that  he  is  out  of  town,  en  vilUgiatnre, 
at  the  seaside,  or  at  his  place  in  the  country. 

*  * 

The  king  of  French  snobs  calls  himself 
M.  du  Bois,  M.  du  Val,  M.  du  Mont— or  better 
still,  M.  de  la  Roche-Pichenette.  His  father, 
an  honest  man,  and  useful  member  of  society, 
amassed  penny  by  penny  a  snug  fortune ;  his 
name  was  Dumont,  Duval,  Dubois,  of  the  bois 
of  which  useful  men  are  made.  The  son 
squanders  the  money  of  his  lamented  papa, 
and  calls  himself  Du  Bois,  of  the  bois  of  which 
parasites  and  idlers  are  made.  If  one  of  his 
estates  happens  to  be  called  "la  Roche-Piche- 
nette," he  dubs  himself  M.  de  la  Roche- 
Pichenette,  which  looks  grander  still.  He 
would  be  puzzled  to  show  you  the  letters 
patent  which  authorize  him  in  assuming  this 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  125 


grotesque  name ;  but  he  will  tell  you  that,  if 
he  cannot  do  so,  it  is  because  those  Repub- 
lican scoundrels  of  '93  destroyed  them.  He  is 
a  clerical  and  stanch  Royalist,  as  a  matter  of 
course;  noblesse  oblige.  In  this  respect  he  out- 
does the  genuine  nobleman,  who  needs  make 
no  noise  to  attract  attention  to  a  name  which 
everyone  knows,  and  which,  in  spite  of  what 
may  be  said  on  the  subject,  often  recalls  the 
memory  of  some  glorious  event  in  the  past. 
Noise  he  must  make,  unfortunately  for  his 
cause.  So  a  German  jumps  on  the  table  to 
make  believe  that  he  is  merry. 

He  talks  of  his  ancestors,  and  rails  at  the 
Revolution  which  made  a  man  of  him.  An- 
cestors he  has,  of  course,  as  you  and  I  have; 
they  were,  doubtless,  worthy  fellows,  good 
patriots,  who  may  have  been  present  at  Fon- 
tenoy,  at  Rocroy,  or  even  at  the  siege  of  Jeru- 
salem, for  the  very  simple  reason  that  the 
principle  of  spontaneous  generation  has  never 
been  applied  to  man.  But  if  his  ancestors  lent 
a  helping  hand  at  the  taking  of  Jerusalem,  and 


126  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

also,  perhaps,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  at  the  tak- 
ing of  the  Bastille,  he,  for  his  part,  has  taken 
nothing  particular  except  a  sham  title. 

This  kind  of  snob  is  not  met  with  in  Eng- 
land. The  names  of  the  lords,  baronets,  and 
knights  are  published  every  year;  fraud  is  im- 
possible. The  few  contraband  barons  that  are 
to  be  found  in  England  are  barons  of  the  Holy 
Empire. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A    SUCCESS  AS  AN  ANGLOPHOBIST.      (THE 
LATE   MARQUIS   DE   BOISSY.) 

The   Anglophobist  of  the   purest   water  that 

France  ever  produced,  was  the  late  Marquis  de 

Boissy,  senator  of   the  second  Empire.     This 

witty,  eloquent,  spirited  old  Gaul,  was  the  soul 

of  the  august  assembly,  the  only  member  of  it 

who  was  not  either  stuffed  or  embalmed,  and 

his  memory  alone  will  save  it  from  oblivion. 

His  philippics  will  long  ring  in  the  ears  of  the 

French, 

Whether  he  was  in  the  tribune  treating  the 

subject  of  home  or  foreign  politics,  or  whether 

he   was   making  a  speech  at   the   agricultural 

committee   meeting   of  his   borough,  he   had 

but    one  peroration,  his  cherished  device,  his 

hobby : 

Delenda  est  Britannia. 


128  ENGLISH  rilA RISERS  AND 


He  used  to  accuse  England  of  sniothcring 
the  human  race  with  her  breath,  and  would 
conipare  her  to  the  octopus,  that  hideous  and 
sticky  mass  whose  tentacles  have  the  property 
of  creating  a  vacuum  around  them. 


"The  world  will  never  have  any  peace,"  said 
he,  "until  that  brute  has  ceased  sucking  the 
blood  of  other  nations,  and  been  sunk  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea.  Old  as  I  am,  I  would  go 
for  a  drummer,  so  that  I  might  lend  a  helping 
hand  in  subduing  the  nation  that  has  violated 
the  most  sacred  laws  of  humanity." 

All  the  scourges  that  visit  the  earth  were 
put  down  by  him  to  the  credit  of  that  traitress 
of  a  neighbor;  earthquakes,  volcanic  eruptions, 
inundations,  cholera,  the  plague ;  even  down 
to  his  own  colds  in  the  head,  all  were  attrib- 
uted by  him  to  the  baneful  influence  of  the 
breeze  that  had  passed  over  England. 

He  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  the  air  of 
the  Champs-Elysees  in  Paris  was  polluted  by 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  129 

the  presence  of  the  Engh'sh  colony  in  its  midst. 
Every  time  he  passed  through  it,  he  fumigated 
himself  as  soon  as  he  reached  home. 

Poor  Marquis  de  Boissy,  what  would  you 
have  said,  if  you  had  lived  long  enough  to 
receive  invitations  to  five  o" chequer  ? 

The  old  Anglophobist  was  sincere  in  his  epic 
outbursts,  and  at  the  same  time  very  amusing, 
for  he  was  as  full  of  wit  as  he  was  of  Anglo- 
phobia. 

He  is  dead,  leaving  no  successor;  France  is 
at  present  without  a  declared  Anglophobist. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

WOMAN   WORSHIP. 

A  WORSHIPER  of  grace  and  beauty,  the 
Frenchman  has  given  to  woman  a  place  which 
she  occupies  in  no  other  nation. 

Since  the  days  when  Aspasia  inspired  Socra- 
tes and  advised  Pericles,  in  no  other  country 
has  woman's  sovereignty  been  so  supreme  as 
it  has  always  been,  and  still  is,  in  France. 

The  Frenchman  is  keenly  alive  to  woman's 
influence,  and  woman  is  an  ever-present,  a 
fixed,  idea  with  him.  Whether  he  study  her 
from  the  artistic,  physiological,  or  psychologi- 
cal point  of  view,  his  interest  in  her  is  never 
exhausted. 

It  is  a  case  of  woman  worship.  Parodying 
Terence's  lines,  he  says : 

"I  am  a  man,  and  all  that  concerns  woman 
interests  me." 


132  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Nothing  is  more  absurd  in  the  eyes  of  the 
English  than  this  ever-present  idea  of  woman 
in  the  mind  of  the  Frenchman,  and  as  our  dear 
neighbors  do  not  know  us  any  better  than  if 
an  ocean,  instead  of  a  silver  streak,  separated 
us  and  them,  they  indulge  in  a  thousand  and 
one  commentaries  upon  the  puerility  of  our 
character. 

However,  it  is  to  our  education,  and  to  that 
alone,  that  this  weak  but  charming  side  of  our 
national  character  must  be  attributed. 

If,  from  the  tenderest  age,  we  were  used  to 
liberty  and  the  companionship  of  children  of 
the  other  sex,  we  should  grow  up  thinking 
very  little  about  liberty  and  women,  and  we 
should  succeed  in  acquiring  that  sangfroid 
which  is  the  foundation-stone  of  the  prosper- 
ity and  the  greatness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

When  we  were  schoolboys,  and  a  rumor 
spread  through  the  class  rooms  that  the  sister 
of  So-and-So  was  in  the  parlor,  do  you  remem- 
ber, my  dear  compatriots,  what  a  commotion 
it    created    throughout    the   whole   establish- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  133 

ment?  Do  you  remember  how  we  climbed  on 
tables  and  chairs,  and  how  happy  we  were  if 
we  could  but  catch  sight  of  the  corner  of  a 
petticoat  at  the  other  end  of  the  courtyard? 
No  wonder,  for,  to  us,  a  girl  was  quite  an  ex- 
traordinary being,  something  almost  super- 
natural. The  scream  of  the  young  ladies  of 
Miss  Tomkins'  Seminary,  on  hearing  that  "a 
man  is  behind  the  door!"  is  nothing,  com- 
pared to  the  magic  cry,  ''Unc  fille ! ''  in  a 
French  school. 

Is  not  the  object  of  man's  worship  always 
something  unknown,  extraordinary,  ideal?  Is 
it  not  always  clothed  in  mystery?  Have  we 
ever  bestowed  unlimited  admiration  upon 
those  whose  society  we  frequent  every  day? 
Habit  kills  admiration,*  as  it  kills  all  senti- 
ments that  live  upon  illusions.  If,  from  our 
childhood,  woman  were  the  companion  of  our 
daily  games  and  walks,  should  we  not  look 
upon  her  with  different  eyes? 

*  I   take   the   word    ' '  admiration  "  in  the  Latin   sense   of 
"  wonder." 


134  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

To  US  Frenchmen,  woman  is  a  being  whom 
we  consider  greatly  superior  to  ourselves, 
because  we  have  made  an  ideal  of  her. 

To  the  Englishman,  woman  is  a  creature 
whom  he  looks  down  upon  as  a  frail  and  friv- 
olous being,  greatly  inferior  to  himself.  With 
what  an  air  of  sovereign  condescension  the 
English  schoolboy  tells  his  young  girl  friends 
all  about  the  game  of  football  or  cricket,  in 
which  he  has  taken  part!  His  manner  seems 
to  say:  "Is  it  not  awfully  kind  of  me  to  take 
the  trouble  to  enter  into  these  details  with 
poor,  puny  creatures  like  you,  who  cannot 
appreciate  them?" 

In  France,  whatever  a  woman  does  is  right ; 
even  her  errors  almost  turn  to  her  advantage. 
If  she  breaks  her  marriage  vows,  it  is  not  she 
who  is  covered  wath  shame,  it  is  her  husband 
who  is  covered  with  ridicule ;  and  people  im- 
mediately look  for  defects  in  him,  and  excuses 
for  her. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  135 

A  society  thus  governed  by  women  may 
lack  firmness,  but  its  salient  points  are  sure  to 
be  good  taste,  delicacy,  tact,  wit,  and  amiability. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  mention  here  the 
ascendancy  which  women  took  over  French 
literature  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  and  during  the  early  part  of  the 
present  one,  through  the  influence  of  the  salons 
littcraires.  Does  it  not  seem,  in  fact,  as  if  the 
history  of  French  literature  might  be  summed 
up  by  naming  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet,  and 
the  salons  of  Mme.  des  Loges,  Mile,  de  Scu- 
d^ry,  Mme.  de  Sable,  Ninon  de  Lenclos,  Mme. 
Scarron,  the  Duchesse  du  Maine,  the  Marquise 
de  Lambert,  Mme.  du  Deffand,  Mme.  d'Epinay, 
Mme.  de  Caylus,  Mme.  de  Vintimille,  Mme. 
Recamier,  Mme.  de  Stael,  and  Mme.  Girardin? 
Do  we  not  know  the  courts  of  Louis  XIV., 
Louis  XV.,  Louis  XVI.,  and  Napoleon  I.  by 
the  letters  and  memoirs  of  this  splendid  legion 
of  women  belonging  to  "  la  societe polie"  who 
have  taught  us  the  art  of  causer,  that  art  of 
which  we  French  have  the  monopoly? 


136  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

This  woman'  worship,  from  which  chivalry 
sprang,  is  the  source  of  another  trait  character- 
istic of  the  French  nation,  a  trait  which  we 
have  a  right  to  be  proud  of.  I  speak  of  our 
respect  for  the  weak.  I  engage  that  the  low- 
est quarter  of  any  French  town  would  be 
roused  into  revolution  at  the  sound  of  a  man 
having  ill-treated  a  woman  or  child.  It  is  a 
sentiment  innate  in  the  Celt,  and  which  would 
be  found  in  the  Englishman,  if  the  Germanic 
element  had  not  gained  the  ascendancy  in 
England.* 

Is  there  any  prettier  sight  than  that  of  our 
public  gardens  filled  with  well-dressed,  bright- 
faced  young  mothers,  whose  husbands  come, 
when  business  is  over,  to  listen  to  the  band  at 
their  side,  and  to  take  them   to  their  homes, 

*  The  Germanic  hordes,  which  overran  Gaul  in  the  fifth 
century,  did  not  succeed  in  changing  our  language  or  charac- 
ter. On  the  contrary,  the  barbarians  were  civilized  by  contact 
with  us,  and  adopted  our  language,  instead  of  imposing  theirs 
upon  us.  In  Great  Britain,  the  case  was  different  :  the  ab- 
sorption was  complete  :  from  the  fifth  to  the  ninth  century, 
the  island  was  perfectly  Germanic. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  137 


from  which  care  is  banished  as  far  as  possible, 
and  where  they  are  made  sharers  in  each  joy 
of  their  husbands? 

Can  we  imagine  a  pleasure  party  of  any  kind 
without  the  presence  of  women?  And  when  I 
say  zve,  I  mean  all  classes  of  society.  When 
our  workman  sets  out,  on  Sunday  mornings, 
for  the  Jardin  de  la  Muette  or  the  Bois  de 
Meudon,  with  provisions  for  the  day,  he  takes 
his  wife  and  children  with  him ;  and  even  his 
old  mother,  if  he  have  one,  must  go  too,  or  the 
party  is  not  complete. 

I  confess  that  those  world-famed  English 
dinners  which  are  not  brightened  by  the  pres- 
ence of  ladies  have  but  little  charm  for  me. 

"Those  English  people  enjoy  themselves 
as  we  bore  ourselves  to  death,"  once  said 
Mme.  Vigee-Lebrun. 

When  I  say  that  women  are  rarely  seen  at 
the  great  public  dinners,  which  are  the  distin- 
guishing feature  of  English  society,  I  exagger- 
ate. They  are  sometimes  admitted  ...  to 
the  galleries,  from  thence  to  contemplate  the 


138  ENGLISH  niAKISEES. 

lords  of  creation  consuming  their  prodigious 
repast. 

Gallantry  could  surely  go  no  further. 

Looking  from  the  gallant  knights  of  the 
trencher  to  the  pretty  faces  in  the  gallery,  I 
have  more  than  once  exclaimed  to  myself: 
"Nobody  can  say  that  an  Englishman's  eyes 
are  bigger  than  his  stomach." 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

FAITH   AND    REASON. 

The  various  religions  in  existence  were 
founded  by  men  of  different  nations  to  suit 
their  own  character. 

The  French,  impressionable  and  fond  of 
pompous  pageants,  adopted  a  mystical  relig- 
ion, which  addresses  itself  to  their  senses ;  the 
English,  cool  and  argumentative,  preferred  a 
religion  which  addresses  itself  to  their  reason. 
This  is  why  churches  in  France  savor  of  the 
theater,  and  churches  in  England  savor  of  the 
lecture-room. 

Calvinism  did  not  take  root  in  France,  and 
never  will,  because  it  is  not  amiable.  Roman- 
ism will  never  flourish  in  England  again, 
because  it  says:  "Believe,  without  seeking  to 
understand." 

»39 


I40  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


The  Roman  Catholic  rch'gion  aims  at  gain- 
ing a  hold  over  the  heart,  the  Protestant  relig- 
ion aims  at  gaining  a  hold  over  the  mind. 
The  first  attracts  women  by  its  poetry  and 
mysticism  and  governs  through  them ;  the 
second  attracts  men  by  sometimes  offering 
them  food  for  their  intellectual  appetites. 

Finally,  the  first  is  under  the  control  of  a 
foreign  power,  the  second  is  national. 


* 
*  ->:- 


We  French  people  worship  a  tender,  merci- 
ful, almost  familiar,  God,  whom  we  are  wont 
to  call  szveet  Savior. 

The  English  worship  the  God  of  the  Jews, 
that  God  Who  commanded  His  chosen  people 
to  exterminate  their  enemies,  and  spare  neither 
man,  woman,  or  child,  and  Whom  they  call 
aiufiil  God. 

The  manner  in  which  we  speak  of  the  Divin- 
ity shocks  the  English ;  the  manner  in  which 
the  English  worship  Him  leaves  us  cold  and 
indifferent. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  141 

To  the  Frenchmen  who  say  that  religion 
is  incompatible  with  liberty,  I  would  simply 
reply :  England  and  America  are  the  freest 
nations  in  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
most  religious — I  mean  the  most  church-going. 

To  the  English  who  say  that  there  is  no 
religion  in  France,  I  would  reply:  Our 
churches  are  not,  like  yours,  full  only  from 
eleven  to  half-past  twelve ;  they  are  thronged 
from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  one  in  the 
afternoon  by  a  crowd  whose  fervor  is  second 
to  that  of  no  other  church-goers,  and  this 
French  piety  is  all  the  more  admirable  be- 
cause, in  our  country,  religion  is  not  an  indis- 
pensable garment,  as  it  is  in  England. 

It  would  be  as  imprudent  to  judge  the  relig- 
ion of  the  English  from  the  French  point  of 
view,  as  it  would  be  to  judge  the  religion  of 
the  French  from  the  English  point  of  view. 
This  being  granted,  something  more  is  requi- 
site, if  we  would  judge  fairly,  and   that   is  to 


142  ENGLISH  rilAKISEES  AND 

start  with  the  principle  that  all  convictions 
that  are  dictated  by  conscience  are  worthy  of 
respect. 

But  such  is  not  the  usual  manner  of  setting 
about  it.  To  call  one's  neighbors  "idolaters," 
and  hear  one's  self  called  "marchand  de  Bible" 
in  return,  is  certainly  much  more  lively. 

*  * 

The  English  have  given  the  name  of  Mariol- 
atry  to  the  homage  paid  to  the  Mother  of 
Christ,  and  it  is  a  deep-rooted  belief  in  Eng- 
land that  the  French  pay  to  Mary  a  worship 
equal  to  that  which  they  pay  to  God. 

Like  ourselves,  they  too  often  judge  by  ap- 
pearances. 

The  divine  honors  paid  to  the  Virgin  Mary 
have  nothing  to  do  with  adoration ;  the  pray- 
ers addressed  to  her  are  for  intercession.  It  is 
a  poetical  homage  rendered  chiefly  by  women, 
who  would  fain  have  the  holiest  of  women 
plead  with  a  beloved  son  on  their  behalf.  It 
is  to  her  that  the  young  girl  turns  who  has 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  143 

just  engaged  her  heart ;  it  is  to  her  that  the 
young  mother  prays  as  she  bends  over  the 
cradle  of  her  child. 

"Horrible!"  cry  the  Protestants,  "as  if  God 
were  not  just,  as  if  He  wanted  to  be  told  what 
He  should  do!" 

But  since  you  pray  to  Him  yourselves,  it  is 
clear  that  you  think  it  advisable  to  remind 
Him  sometimes  of  your  needs. 

Then  the  Frenchman  (excuse  a  comparison 
which,  to  my  mind,  appears  to  be  strikingly 
true),  the  Frenchman,  I  say,  who  has  the  love 
and  respect  for  his  mother  inborn  in  him,  can- 
not help  believing  that  God  could  not  find  it 
in  His  heart  to  refuse  him  anything,  if  Mary, 
His  mother,  would  only  undertake  to  intercede 
on  his  behalf. 

The  homage  paid  to  the  Virgin  is  nothing 
short  of  a  worship  to  Purity,  and  the  most 
ignorant  Irish  peasant  girl  has  the  conscience 
of  her  value  when  she  feels  she  can  kneel  down 
before  the  white-robed  statue.  The  influence 
of  this  worship  on  morality  is  enormous. 


144  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Take  figures. 

In  Scotland,  the  proportion  of  illegitimate 
children  is  i6  per  cent.  In  Protestant  Ireland 
(County  of  Antrim,  etc.)  it  is  7  per  cent.  In 
the  poorest  parts  of  Roman  Catholic  Ireland, 
the  proportion  is  only  ^  per  cent. 
* 

A  religion  is  materialized  that  is  practiced  in 
temples  adorned  with  statues  and  pictures, 
images  of  the  dwellers  in  the  realms  of  the 
blest.  The  uncultured  mortal  does  not  know 
what  abstraction  is.  He  believes  in  what  he 
sees.  When  our  peasant  folk  think  of  God, 
they  picture  Him  to  themselves  as  an  august 
personage  in  a  blue  robe  with  flowing  sleeves, 
who  keeps  the  accounts  of  our  good  and  bad 
actions  and  receives  in  private  audience  every 
morning  certain  saints,  dressed  in  various  col- 
ors (St.  Peter  invariably  in  bottle-green),  who 
come  to  talk  of  their  prot^gtfs,  and  recom- 
mend them  to  His  mercy. 

This  materialism  of  the  other  world   helps 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  145 

the  ignorant  to  understand,  and  explains  why 
the  poor  crowd  our  churches,  in  the  provinces 
at  all  events.  I  say  in  the  provinces  especially, 
for  it  would  be  as  wrong  to  judge  France  by 
Paris,  as  it  would  be  to  judge  England  by 
Regent  Street  and  the  Haymarket.  This  is  a 
renaark  that  I  should  like  to  repeat  at  every  page. 

"What  is  it  that  these  English  people  wor- 
ship?" is  the  question  invariably  asked  by  the 
French  who  visit  English  churches  and  chap- 
els. The  fact  is,  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen 
there  but  whitewashed  walls,  benches,  an 
organ,  and  an  enormous  Bible.  Tell  them 
that,  in  the  eyes  of  the  English,  a  crucifix  is  a 
profane  object,  that  would  be  looked  upon 
with  as  much  horror  as  a  statue  of  Vishnu,  and 
they  will  have  their  doubts  whether  the  name 
of  Christian  really  ought  to  be  applied  to  an 
English  person. 

In  religion,  everything  is  spiritualized  in 
England  and  America.  A  crucifix  recalls  the 
fact  that  Christ  became  man. 

The    English    will    have     neither    crucifix, 


146  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

statue,  nor  picture  in  their  churclies,  because 
they  adhere  to  the  Bible,  and  there  they  find, 
among  the  commandments  of  God,  given  on 
Mount  Sinai: 

"Thou  shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any  graven 
image,  or  any  likeness  of  anything  that  is  in 
the  heaven.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  to 
them,  nor  worship  them." 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  suppressed 
this  commandment.  It  is  not  for  me  to  criti- 
cise her;  but  as  she  has  adopted  a  certain 
number  of  commandments,  which  she  has  even 
translated  into  verse  in  order  to  fix  them  more 
easily  in  the  minds  of  the  faithful,  she  would 
have  perhaps  done  better  to  adopt  them  all. 
At  any  rate  she  has  done  wisely  in  interdicting 
discussion  among  her  followers,  and  in  telling 
them: 

Ce  que  je  dis  tu  croiras 
Sans  raisonner  auparavant. 

* 
-X-    -X- 

The  Protestant  religion  is  more  practical 
and  better  adapted   to  modern   life  than    the 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  I47 

Catholic  one ;  but  if  the  Protestant  faith  may 
help  you  to  live,  I  believe  the  Catholic  faith 
may  better  help  you  to  die. 

Whereas  the  materialization  practiced  by 
the  Roman  Church  attracts  the  lower  classes, 
the  spiritualization  of  the  Anglican  Church 
tends  to  estrange  them.  The  great  unwashed 
of  England  would  not  understand  the  service 
of  the  Anglican  Church.  This  is  partly  why 
cornets  and  drums  are  being  resorted  to,  to 
draw  them  out  of  their  slums. 

Everyone  takes  his  religion  where  he  finds  it. 

Does  not  the  frequentation  of  French  ceme- 
teries show  how  attached  we  are  to  the  body? 
Does  not  the  solitude  of  English  cemeteries 
show  how  little  our  neighbors  share  this  feel- 
ing? 

The  Catholic  is  no  theologian.  He  does  not 
discuss  the  sermons  that  are  preached  to  him ; 


14^  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

he  may  criticise  the  language  of  the  preacher, 
but  dogma  is  not  in  his  line.  All  that  is 
spoken  from  the  pulpit  is  gospel  to  him. 

The  Protestant  is  essentially  a  theologian. 
He  sifts  most  carefully  all  that  he  hears  in 
church.  He  is  not  of  opinion  that  man  was 
made  for  religion,  but  that  religion  was  made 
for  man.  I  have  seen  more  than  one  storm  in 
a  teacup  aroused,  in  little  country  towns,  by  a 
certain  sermon  that  had  appeared  to  the  con- 
gregation to  be  unorthodox.  The  local  news- 
papers would  be  full  of  letters  containing  the 
bitterest  and  most  violent  recriminations. 
The  clergyman,  attacked  like  a  mere  politician 
who  had  changed  his  colors,  would  defend 
himself  by  writing  letter  after  letter  to  the 
paper.  Bible  in  hand,  he  refuted  the  argu- 
ments of  his  adversaries,  who  were  his  own 
flock,  be  it  understood. 

No  demi-gods  in  England ;  everyone  has  to 
pass  through  the  Caudine  Forks  of  criti- 
cism. 

A  young   country    curate,   finding  that    his 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  149 

tradesmen's  bills  were  taking  larger  propor- 
tions than  his  modest  income  could  stand, 
resolved  one  day  to  thunder  from  the  pulpit 
against  the  thirst  for  riches. 

He  prepared  his  thunderbolts. 

Never  did  Horace  or  Bourdaloue  utter  such 
anathemas  against  the  vices  of  the  day. 

"My  dear  brethren,"  he  cried,  "is  it  possible 
that  you  can  thus  place  the  love  of  filthy  lucre 
above  the  love  of  virtue?" 

And,  after  a  few  generalities,  he  came 
straight  to  the  point ;  he  accused  the  trades- 
men of  making  too  large  profits,  and  of  caring 
more  for  the  things  of  this  world  than  for  the 
things  of  the  next. 

A  few  days  later,  it  being  the  5th  of  Novem- 
ber, the  curate  was  burnt  in  effigy. 

His  parishioners  having  rendered  his  life  not 

worth  living  in  the  pretty  little  town  of  X , 

the  young  reverend  gentleman  lost  no  time  in 
packing  up  his  traps  and  quitting  the  neigh- 
borhood, with  the  firm  resolution  never  to 
preach  any  more  sermons  ad  hominem. 


ISO  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

The  Anglican,  or  State  Churcli  of  England 
is  a  Tory  institution,  that  is  to  say,  an  em- 
inently Conservative  one.  It  is  also  a  great 
school  of  discipline  for  the  people.  As  an 
Englishman  of  much  good  sense  said  to  me 
one  day,  the  clergyman  of  a  small  town  advan- 
tageously replaces  half  a  dozen  policemen. 

The  Anglican  Church  is  the  Church  of  Eng- 
lish good  society. 

In  my  quality  of  Frenchman,  I  confess  to 
having  a  partiality  for  this  church,  and  of 
dreading  the  time  when  she  will  be  separated 
from  the  state. 

This  is  why. 

If  we  have  many  sympathizers  in  England, 
they  must  not  be  looked  for,  as  a  rule,  among 
the  bigots  of  all  the  little  conventicles,  who 
vie  with  one  another  in  presenting  the  most 
striking  appearance  of  virtue  and  piety. 

By  these  pretentious,  narrow-minded  folk, 
the  French  are  more  or  less  looked  upon  as 
children  of  the  Evil  One.  The  intelligent 
Englishmen    of  good   society,  who   know  and 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  151 

often  admire  us,  generally  belong  to  the  Angli- 
can Church,  which  takes  care  of  their  future 
"by  special  appointment,"  and  allows  them  to 
relax  a  little  from  their  natural  austerity. 

Nature  has  made  the  Englishman  a  Puritan. 
Churchman  or  not,  stir  him  up,  and  it  is  the 
Puritan  which  rises  to  the  surface.  The  day 
on  which  the  Church  of  England  is  disestab- 
lished, England  will  be  all  Puritan. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE   WORSHIP   OF   THE    GOLDEN    CALF. 

Nothing  is  done  for  mere  glory  in  England, 
every  undertaking  has  a  practical  aim. 

In  France,  every  intelligent  boy  of  the  mid- 
dle class  goes  through  his  classical  studies; 
even  though  he  may  only  be  intended  for  a 
commercial  career,  his  father  makes  him  try  to 
pass  his  B.  A.  or  B.  Sc.  In  England,  boys 
learn  Latin  and  Greek  in  order  to  pass  ex- 
aminations, which  lead  to  certain  positions. 
With  us,  education  is  an  indispensable  orna- 
ment; here,  it  is  a  means  to  an  end.  Thus, 
though  primary  education  may  be  much  more 
widely  spread  in  England,  higher  education  is 
much  more  widely  spread  in  France. 

It  is  at  school  that  young  England  begins  to 
learn  to  make  genuflections  before  the  Golden 
Calf.  The  best  prizes  awarded  in  the  large 
153 


154  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

public  schools  are  prizes  of  money.  These 
establishments  grant  exhibitions  of  from  £^o 
to  ;^I00  a  year,  during  four  or  five  years,  to 
the  best  of  tlie  pupils  who  leave  them  to  go  to 
the  Universities  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 

This  scholarship  system  would  be  admirable 
if  its  object  was  to  help  the  sons  of  poor*  par- 
ents to  continue  their  studies  at  the  Universi- 
ties ;  but  such  is  not  the  case ;  these  scholar- 
ships are  constantly  awarded,  either  through 
competitive  examination,  or  through  the  per- 
sonal interest  of  a  governor,  to  sons  of  rich 
parents.  And  yet,  these  scholarships  were 
founded  by  charitable  persons,  who  bequeathed 
money  to  be  applied  to  the  education  of  the 
intelligent  sons  of  poor  parents.  At  present, 
the  scholarships  of  the  great  schools  of  the 
City  are  at  the  disposal  of  the  City  Companies, 
who  have  monopolized  them  for  their  families 
and  friends,  for  charity  is  organized  on  an  im- 

*  In  our  National  Schools  {Ecoles  Conimiiualcs),  the  prizes 
often  take  the  form  of  sums  of  money,  which  are  deposited  in 
the  Savings  Bank  in  the  child's  name. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  155 

mense  scale  in  England,  especially  that  well- 
ordered  kind  which  begins  at  home. 

The  consequence  of  this  state  of  things  is 
that  John  Bull,  that  unsurpassed  payer  of 
taxes,  is  obliged  to  keep  up  Board  schools  in 
London  at  an  enormous  expense.  If  the  great 
City  schools  fulfilled  the  purpose  for  which 
they  were  established  by  their  "pious  found- 
ers," school  rates  would  be  reduced  by  one- 
half. 

"No  money,  no  Englishman." 

The  Royal  Academy  is  closed  on  Sundays; 
no  free  day. 

The  now  annual  exhibitions  at  South  Ken- 
sington are  closed  on  Sundays.  No  free  entry 
during  the  week. 

The  Zoological  Gardens  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  open  free  on  Sundays  .  .  .  but  only  for 
the  well-to-do  classes,  who  may  obtain  special 
orders  from  the  Fellows  of  the  Zoological 
Society. 

All  the  museums  are  closed  on  Sundays. 

There  is  no  place  for  the  poor  at  the  ban- 


156  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AXD 


quet  of  life  in  England.  For  them,  beer  and 
Bible,  only. 

They  take  beer. 

Not  even  at  church  is  there  room  for  them; 
for  I  maintain  that  the  man  or  woman  whose 
clothes  were  not  what  is  called  here  decent, 
would  be  turned  away  from  the  door;  what 
the  pastors  want  are  sheep  who  will  take  a 
pew  by  the  year,  and  put  silver  pieces  on  the 
plate. 

And  people  marvel,  or  rather  lament,  that 
the  workman,  who  has  worked  all  the  week, 
and  has  no  home  fit  to  spend  his  Sunday  in, 
spends  it  at  the  public  house. 

But  where  is  he  to  go?  The  English,  who 
are  generally  so  sensible,  are  curiously  incon- 
sistent in  this  matter. 


* 
*  % 


I  have  seen,  in  English  illustrated  papers, 
pictures  of  Sunday  in  London  and  Sunday  in 
Paris.     The   first  represented  a  dirty  mob  of 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  157 

men  and  women,  drinking,  quarreling,  and 
fighting;  the  second,  groups  of  workmen, 
accompanied  by  their  wives,  their  children, 
and  their  old  parents,  in  contemplation  before 
the  pictures  in  the  Louvre  Museum. 

This  was  doing  us  justice  for  once. 

Intelligent  and  liberal  England  is  moving 
heaven  and  earth  to  get  the  museums  thrown 
open  to  the  people  on  Sundays.  The  Prince 
of  Wales,  and  the  leaders  of  all  the  aristocra- 
cies of  the  country,  are  at  the  head  of  the 
movement ;  but  all  the  little  narrow-minded 
and  bigoted  world  is  leagued  against  them, 
and  it  is  not  probable  that  they  will  succeed. 
Meanwhile,  the  London  taverns  remain  open, 
which  proves  that  the  English  bigots  consider 
gin  and  beer  more  powerful  moral  stimulants 
than  the  masterpieces  of  great  artists ;  such 
appears  also  to  be  the  decided  opinion  of  the 
bishops,  who  never  fail  to  attend  at  the  House 
of  Lords  in  full  force  when  the  subject  is  com- 
ing on  for  discussion. 


158  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

England  erects  her  statues  to  the  nobility 
and  to  finance.  You  see,  England's  great  lit- 
erary men  were  so  numerous,  that  they  had 
to  be  relegated  to  a  corner  of  Westminster 
Abbey,  for  fear  they  should  hinder  circulation 
in  the  streets.  With  the  aid  of  a  guidebook, 
you  may  succeed  in  discovering  the  tablets 
erected  to  their  memory  by  a  not  too  grateful 
country. 

Thackeray,  the  immortal  author  of  "Van- 
ity Fair,"  is  rewarded  with  a  tablet  about 
a  foot  square.  But,  then,  if  you  will  take  a 
walk  around  the  Stock  Exchange,  you  will  see 
the  third  statue  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
and  one  of  Peabody,  the  millionaire.  In  a 
little  narrow  City  street,  a  bust  of  Milton,  in 
an  obscure  niche,  reminds  the  passer-by  that 
the  author  of  "Paradise  Lost"  was  born  in 
that  place.  It  is  comparatively  unnoticed. 
In  the  wild,  headlong,  guinea  chase,  there  is 
no  time  for  trifling !  Paris  has  a  Riie  Milton 
to  make  up  for  it. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  159 

Yet  this  thirst  for  gold  has  been  the  greatest 
civihzing  power  of  modern  times.  It  is  this 
which  has  opened  up  new  markets  for  com- 
merce in  the  remotest  corners  of  the  world. 
This  British  Empire,  which  has  been  called  a 
brazen  colossus  with  feet  of  clay,  is  the  great- 
est empire  it  was  ever  given  to  man  to  found. 

In  a  hundred  years'  time,  Australia  will 
probably  be  a  strong  and  independent  Repub- 
lic, a  second  America;  but  the  separation  will 
mean  no  loss  of  prestige  or  of  profit  to  Eng- 
land;  her  commerce  will  not  suffer;  her  steam- 
boats will  continue  to  ply  between  London 
and  Sydney,  as  they  do  between  Liverpool 
and  New  York. 

Who  would  dare  to  compare  the  greater 
number  of  England's  conquests  to  those  sterile 
ones  that  only  survive  in  man's  memory  by 
the  tears  and  blood  that  they  have  caused  to 
flow? 


l6o  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"We  are  a  wonderful  people,"  cries  General 
Gordon,  in  his  Diary  at  KJiartonm ;  "it  was 
never  our  Government  which  made  us  a  great 
nation;  our  Government  has  ever  been  the 
drag  on  our  wliecls.  England  was  made  by 
adventurers,  not  by  her  Government;  and  I 
believe  she  will  only  hold  her  place  by  adven- 
turers." 

This  is  true  enough. 

They  were  adventurers,  who  were  the  first 
to  set  foot  on  the  soil  of  those  remote  regions 
which  have  been  added  one  by  one  to  the  lists 
of  England's  colonies;  but  if  England  is  a 
great  nation,  it  is  thanks  to  heroic  deeds,  such 
as  thine,  great  advanced  sentinel  of  modern 
civilization,  who  for  months  couldst  unaided 
keep  hordes  of  barbarians  in  check;  it  is 
thanks  to  heroes  of  thy  stamp,  poor  Gor- 
don! 

* 

England  conquers  by  the  railway.  She  im- 
poses her  civilization  and  her  commerce  in  the 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  l6l 

countries  she  subdues,  puts  the  natives  in  the 
way  of  earning  money,  and  sensibly  takes  care 
to  make  her  yoke  felt  as  little  as  possible. 
Her  commercial  power  makes  her  indispensa- 
ble to  the  rest  of  the  Avorld,  including  the 
shareholders  of  the  Suez  Canal  Company,  to 
whom  she  pays  more  than  three  times  as  much 
as  all  the  other  powers  put  together. 

That  which  makes  the  strength  of  this  colo- 
nial empire,  is  that  each  colony,  like  each  child 
in  the  mother-country,  serves  the  apprentice- 
ship of  life  in  the  enjoyment  of  liberty. 

As  each  colony  becomes  rich  enough  to 
suffice  unto  itself,  and  strong  enough  to  defend 
itself,  England  says  to  the  colonists :  "You  are 
now  big  enough  to  manage  for  yourselves,  it 
is  time  you  learnt  to  do  without  my  help." 
This  is  what  the  Englishman  says  to  his  sons, 
as  they  come  to  man's  estate.  The  colony 
forms  its  government,  chooses  its  ministers, 
and  its  parliament ;  sends  representatives  to 
England  to  watch  over  its  interests  there,  and 
becomes,  as    it   were,  a  branch  house   of  that 


1 62  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

immense  firm,  known  in  every  latitude,  under 
the  name  of  "John  Bull  and  Company."* 

All  forms  of  worship  will  lend  themselves  to 
exaggeration  and  develop  eccentricities,  and 
most  certainly  it  is  not  the  worship  of  the 
Golden  Calf  that  is  an  exception  to  the  rule. 
Let  us  look  at  the  question  from  this  side  as 
well  as  the  other. 

You  never  run  the  risk  of  offending  an 
Englishman  by  offering  him  money. 

Everyone  must  remember  the  lamentations 
of  the  Madagascar  missionary,  Mr.  Shaw. 
The  reverend  gentleman  had  been  parted  from 
his  flock,  and  obliged  to  take  pot-luck  on 
board  the  late  Admiral  Pierre's  vessel.  What 
meant  those  jeremiads?  Was  it  apologies 
he  wanted?  Not  a  bit  of  it!  This  apostle 
wanted  cash.  From  the  day  that  he  received 
$5000    from    the    French    Government    not    a 

*  England  makes  colonies  for  the  exportation  of  her  goods 
and  for  her  surplus  population  ;  France  makes  colonies  for 
the  wholesale  exportation  of  her  officials.  In  Annam,  there 
are  1000  French  Colonists,  4500  French  soldiers,  and  2000 
French  officials. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  1 63 

word  more  was  heard  from  him.  He  was 
quiet  and  happy. 

$5000  for  having  eaten  a  few  bad  dinners! 
It  does  not  fall  to  everyone's  share  to  dine  so 
satisfactorily  as  that. 

Although  the  labor  of  preparing  the  post- 
humous works  of  Victor  Hugo  for  publication 
will  be  enormous,  his  literary  executors  have 
refused  to  accept  the  profits,  sure  to  be  im- 
mense, which  the  poet  meant  should  be  the 
reward  of  their  arduous  task.  But  the  thought 
of  receiving  money  for  such  a  labor  of  love  is 
odious  to  them.  English  people  may  look 
upon  this  as  sentimentality,  but  it  compares 
very  favorably  with  the  highly  practical  pro- 
ceedings of  Thomas  Carlyle's  literary  execu- 
tor. 

M.  H ,  the  French  deputd,  who  obtained 

10,000  francs  damages  the  other  day,  in  Paris, 
from  an  individual  who  had  insulted  his  wife, 
gave  the  money  to  the  poor  the  very  same 
day.  It  is  a  fact  that,  in  France,  no  man,  jeal- 
ous of  his  honor,  would  pocket  such  gains. 


1 64  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

"But,"  you  will  say,  "surely  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Shaw  gave  his  $5000  to  the  poor,  or  to 
some  good  cause ?" 

You  little  know  the  type. 

In  England,  it  is  only  too  much  the  fashion 
to  carry  everything  to  the  bank — an  insult,  a 
kick,  the  loss  of  a  lover,  the  faithlessness  of  a 
wife,  all  possible  inconveniences;  the  almighty 
guinea  consoles  for  every  wrong,  and  may  be 
offered  to  anyone. 

On  his  wedding  day  (January  28,  1885),  '^^^ 
Rev.  Stephen  Gladstone,  Vicar  of  Hawarden, 
and  son  of  the  Prime  Minister  of  England, 
received,  among  his  numerous  wedding  pres- 
ents, a  check  for  a  hundred  pounds  from  Dr. 
Sir  Andrew  Clark,  and  another  for  the  same 
sum  from  the  Duke  of  Westminster.  The 
thing  was  so  natural  that  not  a  single  English 
paper  commented  on  the  fact. 

In  France,  such  a  wedding  present  could 
only  be  offered  to  a  domestic  who  had  served 
us  faithfully  for  some  time. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  165 

I  was  in  France,  spending  a  few  days  with  a 
fanner  in  the  heart  of  the  country. 

Dressed  in  a  blouse  and  a  large  straw  hat,  I 
was  one  day  taking  a  walk  on  the  main  road, 
when  an  Englishman,  accompanied  by  a  young 
lad  of  fifteen,  accosted  me,  and  asked  which 
was  the  shortest  way  to  the  village  of  M . 

Delighted  to  see  an  Englishman,  I  volun- 
teered  all  the  information  that  was  at  my  com- 
mand.    I  even   offered   to  accompany  him   as 

far  as  the  lane  which   led   to   M ,  and    he 

willingly  accepted. 

After  racking  my  brains  to  give  my  English- 
man every  detail  I  could  think  of,  concerning 
the  interesting  village  he  was  about  to  visit,  I 
proposed  to  turn  back. 

He,  after  having  uttered  a  formidable  "Aoh" 
for  all  thanks,  went  on  his  way. 

I  had  spoken  in  French.  I  always  like  to 
make  Englishmen  speak  French  when  I  meet 
them  in  France.     It  is  my  little  revenge. 

I  will  admit  that,  in  my  rustic  attire,  I  could 


1 66  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

not  have  looked  much  of  a  dandy;  but,  in 
France,  we  have  still  preserved  that  good  old 
habit  of  saying  "Thank  you,"  even  to  our  infe- 
riors. 

The  Briton  had  simply  treated  me  as  he 
would  have  a  City  policeman  who  had  told 
him  his  way. 

I  called  him  back. 

"Excuscz-7noi,''  I  said. 

"Aoh!  mon  ami,  oiii  .  .  .  je  sav^  ce  que  vo — 
vole  .  .  .  je  deniande  pardonney 

And,  without  another  word,  he  drew  from 
his  pocket  a  fifty-centime  piece,  which  he 
slipped  into  my  hand. 

As  you  must  always  keep  what  an  English- 
man gives  you  a  chance  of  pocketing,  I  did 
not  hesitate  to  put  the  fifty-centimes  in  a  safe 
place. 

This  done,  I  said  to  him  in  decent  English : 

"My  dear  sir,  let  me  give  you  a  piece  of  ad- 
vice. When  you  have  got  a  Frenchman  to 
talk  himself  hoarse  to  explain  to  you  your  way, 
just  thank  him." 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  167 

"Why,  sir,  you  speak  English " 

He  was  immediately  all  apologies. 

"Above  all,"  I  continued,  "never  offer 
money  in  this  country  before  you  are  quite 
sure  it  will  be  acceptable.  You  might  have  it 
thrown  in  your  face,"  I  added  laughing. 

My  Englishman  held  out  his  hand,  as  if  to 
receive  back  his  fifty  centimes. 

"Oh!  with  me,"  I  said  to  him,  "there  is  no 
danger.  I  have  lived  a  long  while  in  England, 
and  I  am  pretty  businesslike  by  this  time.  I 
never  throw  money  out  of  windows  or  in  peo- 
ple's faces  ...  I  put  it  in  my  pocket." 

My  practical  ideas  won  me  his  esteem.  We 
laughed  heartily  over  the  adventure,  and 
parted  the  best  of  friends. 

After  having  beaten  the  Ashantees,  in  1874, 
brought  home  the  umbrella  of  their  king,  and 
burnt  their  capital,  a  feat  not  requiring  much 
talent,  the  dwellings  being  built  of  wood  and 
straw,  General  Wolseley,  on  his  return  to  Eng- 


1 68  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

land,  had  a  grant  of  ^25,000  made  to  him. 
Eight  years  later,  on  his  return  from  Egypt, 
this  same  general  received  a  peerage  and 
;^28,ooo.  Lord  Alcester,  his  companion  in 
arms,  who  had  operated  on  the  walls  of  Alex- 
andria, while  he  was  operating  on  the  backs  of 
the  Egyptians,  also  obtained  a  peerage  and 
;^30,ooo.  When  I  consider  that,  during  the 
siege  of  Alexandria,  the  English  had  only 
three  men  put  hors  de  combat,  it  occurs  to  me 
that  doubtless  these  rewards  were  granted  to 
Lord  Alcester  at  the  suggestion  of  the  British 
Royal  Humane  Society. 

And  yet  General  Roberts,  the  history  of 
whose  celebrated  march  to  Candahar  will  re- 
main written  in  letters  of  gold  among  the 
records  of  the  great  military  feats  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  had  to  content  himself  with  the 
Grand  Cross  of  the  Order  of  the  Bath. 

General  Wolseley,  now  Baron  of  Cairo,  a 
name  so  grotesque  that  he  has  never  yet  cared 
to  assume  it  in  public,  was  one  day  sent  back 
to  the  Soudan  to  deliver  Gordon,  that  modern 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  169 

chevalier  sans  peur  et  sans  reprocJie.  The  per- 
spective was  tempting;  there  was  every  pros- 
pect of  an  ample  harvest  of  honors  and 
banknotes.  Unfortunately,  the  Mahdi  cut 
the  grass  under  the  general's  feet,  and  he 
arrived  too  late.  Poor  Gordon  had  to  die, 
not  to  save  his  country,  but  to  become,  and 
forever  remain,  a  specter  at  England's  feast, 
the  victim  of  her  vacillations,  a  standing  re- 
proach to  her  indifference. 

Gordon  and  Wolseley !  to  think  that,  by  the 
irony  of  fate,  these  two  names  should  have 
been  associated  in  the  same  campaign !  The 
soldier  saint,  and  the  noble  millionaire,  whose 
victories  are  sounded  with  the  clink  of  guineas. 
"Look,  here,  upon  this  picture,  and  on  this." 
And  you,  O  heroes  of  antiquity,  arise  from 
your  long  sleep,  and  see  the  progress  that  mili- 
tary art  has  made !  Veil  your  faces,  O  Fabri- 
cius,  Cincinnatus,  and  all  you  Romans,  who, 
after  you  had  subdued  your  country's  foes, 
and  drawn  fettered  kings  behind  your  trium- 
phal chariots,  returned  to  cultivate  your  fields, 


I70  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

and  died  so  poor  that  you  had  to  be  buried  at 
the  public  expense. 

It  has  long  been  England's  practice  to  re- 
ward with  money  those  who  had  rendered 
services  to  the  country. 

After  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  received,  as  a  present  from  the 
nation,  ^^400,000  and  a  palace  at  the  entrance 
of  Hyde  Park. 

With  reference  to  the  grants  to  the  famous 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  that  great  general,  who 
filled  the  hearts  of  his  enemies  with  terror,  and 
the  pockets  of  his  family  with  the  money  of 
his  countrymen,  and  whose  descendants  still 
receive  from  the  state  the  sum  of  ^4000  a 
year,  Swift  compares,  in  the  Examiner,  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  Romans  with  the  generosity  of 
the  English : 

A  Bill  of  Roman  Gratitude. 

For  frankincense,  and  earthen  pots  to  burn  it  in,      .  $22.50 

A  bull  for  sacrifice,           ......  40.00 

An  embroidered  garment,         .....  250.00 

A  crown  of  laurel,             ......  .05 

A  statue, 500.00 

A  trophy, 400.00 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  171 

A  thousand  copper  medals,  value  half-penny  apiece,         10.20 
A  triumphal  arch,     .......     2500.00 

A  triumphal  car,       .......       500.00 

Casual  charges  at  the  triumph,  ....       750.00 

Total, $4972.75 

A  Bill  of  British  Gratitude. 

Woodstock, $200,000.00 

Blenheim, 1,000,000.00 

Post-office  grant,      ......  500,000.00 

Mildenheim,    .......  150,000.00 

Pictures,  jewels,  etc.,       .....  300,000.00 

Pall  Mall  grant 50,000.00 

Employments,          ......  500,000.00 

Total, $2,700,000.00 

John  Churchill,  Duke  of  Marlborough,  was 
pocketing  these  $2,700,000  about  the  time 
when  Flechier,  comparing  Turenne  to  Macca- 
baeus,  was  able  to  say  of  him,  "that  he  would 
never  accept  any  other  reward,  for  the  services 
he  rendered  to  his  country,  than  the  honor  of 
having  served  her." 

It  is  not  at  the  Abbey  of  Westminster,  it  is 
on  the  facade  of  the  Bank  of  England  that 
there  ought  to  be  written : 

HERE  ENGLAND  SHOWS  HER  GRATITUDE 
TO  HER  GREAT  MEN. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

WHY   THE   FRENCH   WERE   BEATEN   IN    1870. 

Everyone  accounted  for  our  disasters  of  1870 
after  his  own  fashion.  The  most  ingenious 
theories  were  brought  forward,  and  we  very 
well  know  why  we  believe  it  to  be  indispensa- 
ble and  patriotic  to  learn  German. 

"Ah!"  cried  some,  "if  we  had  only  known 
German,  we  should  not  have  been  defeated." 
And  forthwith  instruction  in  German  was 
decreed  obligatory. 

"That  is  not  it,"  said  others,  "it  is  our  geog- 
raphy, of  which  we  did  not  know  even  the 
rudiments,  that  has  been  the  cause  of  all  the 
evil.  On  leaving  Paris,  our  officers,  ignorant  of 
the  meanders  of  the  Seine,  thought  that  they 
were  beating  a  retreat  each  time  they  came  to 
a  fresh  bend  of  that  river."  And  the  study  of 
geography  received  a  fillip. 


174  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Others  again  would  have  it  to  be  that  if  the 
visors  of  our  soldier's  k^pis  had  not  been  lifted 
upward  in  front,  the  Prussians  would  have  had 
a  warm  time  of  it.  Down  came  the  visors 
without  delay. 

I  pass  over  the  pious  people,  who  saw  in  our 
disasters  only  the  just  chastisement  of  our 
faults,  and  will  only  give  the  opinion  of 
Thomas  Carlyle,  This  philosopher,  whom  the 
hazard  of  birth  had  made  English,  but  who 
was  a  perfect  German,  cried  out  that  "Ger- 
manic virtues  had  triumphed  over  GaUic 
vices." 

Some  few  worthy  folks,  perfectly  destitute 
of  genius,  but  possessing  an  ounce  or  two  of 
common  sense,  attributed  our  defeats  to  the 
fact  that  the  Germans  had  an  army  of  1,200,- 
000  men,  whereas  our  own  forces  scarcely  num- 
bered 350,000.  I  fancy  it  is  these  latter  that 
history  will  show  to  have  been  in  the  right. 

The  virtuous  Germans  that  vanquished  us, 
were  they,  after  all,  so  clever  at  geography  and 
French?     This  is  how  they  learnt  the  geogra- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  175 

phy  they  required,  and  how  they  made  them- 
selves understood  in  French : 

A  few  Uhlans  would  approach  to  within  a 
respectful  distance  of  a  village.  There  they 
would  seize  upon  the  first  peasant,  old  man,  or 
child,  that  passed,  place  a  pistol  to  his  throat, 
and  after  asking,  "Are  there  any  French  sol- 
diers in  your  village?"  would  say:  "Show  us 
the  way  to  such  and  such  place,  and  tell  us  the 
names  of  all  the  people  around  here,  who  have 
wine  in  their  cellars,  or  hay  in  their  barns. 
And  you  had  better  take  care  to  tell  the 
truth,  or  we  will  blow  your  brains  out,  and  set 
fire  to  the  four  corners  of  your  village." 

Loaded  pistols  and  lighted  torches  are  magi- 
cal quickeners  of  slow  intellects;  a  deaf  man 
would  understand  such  arguments  as  these. 
If  I  took  by  the  collar  the  first  lad  I  came 
across  in  Germany,  and,  lifting  my  stick  to  his 
head,  shouted  into  his  ear:  "You  young  ras- 
cal, I  will  knock  your  head  off,"  I  will  warrant 
he  would  understand  me  as  quickly  as  if  I 
spoke  the  purest  German. 


J  7  a  ENGLISH  rilARISEES  AND 

If  wc  have  any  spare  time,  let  us  learn  Ger- 
man that  we  may  be  able  to  read  Goethe  and 
Schiller;  from  the  practical  point  of  view,  the 
utility  of  German  is  but  secondary.  If  we 
should  ever  demand  of  Germany  the  provinces 
that  she  wrenched  from  us,  we  shall  find  we 
have  enough  German-speaking  mouths,  if  we 
can  only  put  into  the  field  as  many  mouths  of 
cannon  as  Wilhem  II. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

ENGLAND     WORKS     FOR     HERSELF.        THE 
WORLD   OWES    HER   NOTHING. 

"If,"  as  M.  R^nan  says,*  "those  nations  which 
have  an  exceptional  fact  in  their  history 
expiate  this  fact  by  long  sufferings  and  pay 
for  it  with  their  national  existence — if  the 
nations  that  have  created  unique  things  by 
which  the  world  profits  often  die  victims  of 
their  achievements,"  England  may  hope  to 
live  a  considerable  time  yet,  for  everything 
that  she  undertakes  is  national,  never  univer- 
sal. She  works  for  herself  and  herself  alone. 
Whenever  she  is  asked  to  co-operate  in  the 
execution  of  a  great  project  of  universal  inter- 
est, she  refuses  pointblank,  unless  it  appears 
quite  clear  to  her  that  she  alone  will  reap  the 
profits  and  honors  of  the   undertaking.      An 

*  "  La  Reforme  Intellectuelle  et  Morale." 


lyS  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Englishman's  sphere  of  action  is  always  Eng- 
land and  her  colonies;  his  only  aim,  British 
interests — two  magic  words  to  his  ears. 

If  the  Channel,  Tunnel  could  be  made  so 
that  it  could  only  be  used  by  the  English,  it 
would  be  commenced  to-morrow. 

Lord  Beaconsfield  pronounced  patriotism  to 
be  the  most  rational  form  of  egotism.  Would  to 
Heaven  it  might  be  so  interpreted  in  France! 

When  shall  we,  in  France,  cease  to  strive 
after  the  extraordinary  and  the  universal? 
When  shall  we  cease  to  concern  ourselves 
about  the  happiness  of  the  whole  human  race 
and,  minding  our  own  business,  undertake  only 
the  possible  and  the  practical?  When  shall  we 
cease  to  become  inventors  and  be  men  of 
business? 

There  is  not  much  discovered  in  England 
nowadays,  except  new  ways  of  dodging  the 
arch-enemy. 

Yet  it  was  Newton  who  discovered  the  infin- 
itesimal   calculus    and    the   laws   of    universal 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  179 

gravitation.  Yet  it  was  England  that  pro- 
duced Shakespeare,  the  subHmest  example  of 
the  Creator's  handiwork.  Yet  it  was  Harvey 
who  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood. 
But  now  England  is  entirely  given  over  to 
business;,  she  has  no  time  to  throw  away  upon 
inventions. 

For  that  matter,  why  should  England  go  in 
for  inventing?  She  has  money  and  a  genius 
for  commerce,  and,  possessing  these,  can  do 
without  inventors,  who,  as  a  rule,  die  in  the 
workhouse,  with  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  shrewd  men  of  business  have  made  for- 
tunes out  of  their  discoveries. 

This  has  always  been  so.  Even  the  sublime 
and  Divine  Thinker  expiated  with  an  ignomin- 
ious death  the  invention  of  a  theory  which,  but 
for  the  meddling  of  speculators,  would  have 
insured  the  happiness  of  the  world.  To-day 
He  can  contemplate  from  His  celestial  throne, 
the  bishops  coming  out  of  their  palaces  in 
luxurious  carriages  to  go  to  the  House  of 
Lords  and  vote  against  the  opening  of  muse- 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


urns  on  Sundays,  or  on  their  way  to  the  Man- 
sion House  to  feast  with  the  Lord  Mayor,  who 
gives  better  dinners  than  were  to  be  had  in 
Galilee,  I  assure  you. 

* 
*  * 

The  world  is  made  up  of  fools  and  knaves, 
such  was  the  judgment  passed  upon  mankind 
by  Thomas  Carlyle,  the  great  English  histo- 
rian, a  rough  and  dyspeptic  philosopher,  who 
himself,  however,  was  neither  a  knave  nor  a 
fool. 

This  writer,  who  passed  his  life  in  insult- 
ing his  countrymen  one  after  another,  who 
could  make  love  to  his  wife  by  correspondence 
when  she  was  far  away,  but  who  never  found 
an  amiable  word  to  say  to  her  when  she  was 
near,  this  same  Thomas  Carlyle  has  calumni- 
ated the  world.  Where  should  we  be  without 
the  few  disinterested  heroes  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  amelioration  of  their  fellow- 
creatures,  and  who,   in    return,  have    received 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  l8l 

but  poverty  and  prison,  torture  and  death? 
The  men  who  have  suffered  for  country, 
reh'gion,  science,  Hberty ;  are  these  Carlyle's 
fools? 


CHAPTER  XXL 

THE     SPIRIT     OF     DESTRUCTION      AND     THE 
SPIRIT   OF    CONSERVATISM. 

How  is  it  that  the  French  are  such  vandals 
with  regard  to  their  country  and  their  institu- 
tions, seeing  that  the  love  for  their  family, 
respect  for  their  parents,  and  veneration  for 
souvenirs,  are  such  marked  features  in  their 
character?  The  fact  is  that  France  is  towed 
unresistingly  by  Paris,  and  that  we  often  have 
to  say  "the  French,"  when  in  reality  we  only 
mean  "the  Parisians.'* 

We  are  accused  of  no  longer  having  much 
respect  for  anything.  Alas !  that  it  should  be 
impossible  to  deny  such  an  accusation ! 

A  country,  just  like  a  family,  lives  by  its 
traditions,  its  souvenirs,  even  by  its  prejudices. 
Destroy  these  souvenirs,  some  of  which  serve 

as  examples  and   others  as  warnings,  destroy 

183 


1 84  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

these  traditions,  and  you  break  the  chain 
that  binds  the  family  together,  and  the  past, 
though  never  so  glorious,  has  been  lived  in 
vain.  Is  a  country  less  dear  to  her  sons  be- 
cause of  her  prejudices?  Do  we  not  love  to 
find  them  in  a  dear  old  mother? 

Do  not  the  very  prejudices  and  weaknesses, 
the  thousand  little  failings  of  our  friends,  often 
endear  them  to  us? 

Then  why  are  we  not  content  with  France 
as  she  is?  Why  be  always  wanting  to  change 
her?  Is  it  possible  that  we  Frenchmen,  the 
most  home-abiding  men  in  the  world,  can  be 
attacked  by  this  ridiculous  mania  for  change? 

The  study  of  the  French  language  furnishes 
of  itself  plain  proof  of  our  spirit  of  destruction, 
and  the  Dictionnaire  des  Significations,  which. 
is  shortly  to  be  published,  and  is  awaited  with 
impatience  by  the  learned  world,  will  show,  by 
the  history  of  the  changes  of  meaning  that  our 
words  have  undergone,  that  the    character  of 


FREXCH  CROCODILES.  185 

the  French  people  can  be  recognized  to  this 
very  day  by  the  descriptions  that  were  given 
of  it  two  thousand  years  ago. 

The  French  word  benit  formerly  meant 
"blessed." 

Thanks  to  the  jokes  of  the  old  Gauls,  our 
ancestors,  it  now  means  "silly."  Our  forefa- 
thers heard  in  church:  "Benedicti  stulti  quia 
habebunt  regnum  coelorum."*  Benis  seront 
les  pauvres  d'esprit,  car  ils  auront  le  royaume 
des  cieux.  Now,  in  French,  pauvre  d'esprit 
means  "silly,"  and,  on  their  way  home,  the  old 
jokers  would  indulge  in  merry  remarks  at  one 
another's  expense.  When  anyone  gave  proof 
of  want  of  wit,  he  was  congratulated  on  having 
his  entry  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  se- 
cured : 

"You  are  stultiis  enough  to  be  benedictiis  "  / 
and  the  first  adjective  soon  came  to  have  the 
meaning  of  the  second. 

It  will  soon  be  impossible  to  pronounce  the 

*  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 


1 86  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

word  fillc  in  good  society,  except  to  express 
relationship. 

Why  are  we  obliged  to  make  use  of  this 
word  to  designate  a  child  of  the  feminine  sex? 
Simply  because  the  feminine  oi  gar(^o)i  began 
to  be  used  in  a  bad  sense  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  Before  the  feminine  of  gar(^on — 
which  the  French  had  to  give  up,  as  they  will 
soon  have  to  give  up  the  word  Jille — they  had 
a  word  which  is,  in  the  present  day,  a  horribly 
coarse  expression. 

Such  is  the  march  of  the  spirit  of  destruc- 
tion. 

The  Gauls  have  always  been  rich  in  wit,  but 
wit  often  of  a  bantering  and  sarcastic  kind, 
which  disparages  and  covers  with  ridicule,  and 
of  which  Voltaire  was  the  personification. 

People  who  eat  sausages  on  a  Friday,*  in 
France,  think  they  are  doing  a  smart  thing, 
and  rebelling  against  a  form  of  tyranny,  forget- 

*  Everybody  knows  that,  at  Guernsey,  Victor  Hugo  had  an 
Irish  Catholic  cook,  and  that  the  illustrious  poet  abstained 
from  meat  on  Fridays,  not  to  offend  his  faithful  servant. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  187 

ting  that  Lenten  fasts  had  originally  a  sanitary 
reason.  To  give  rest  to  the  stomach,  such  was 
the  aim ;  and  a  French  physician  said  to  me 
one  day:  "If  there  were  no  Lent  in  the  spring, 
I  should  order  my  patients  to  fast  two  or  three 
times  a  week,  through  that  season  of  the  year." 
The  Talmud  forbids  the  Jews  to  eat  pork, 
because  that  meat  is  heavy  and  indigestible ; 
the  Koran  forbids  the  use  of  wine  among  the 
Mussulmans,  because  of  its  intoxicating  prop- 
erties ;  in  fact,  have  not  all  these  religious 
edicts  a  foundation  of  common  sense,  and  do 
we  not  give  proof  of  common  sense  in  con- 
forming to  them?  Truly,  he  is  but  a  pitiful 
hero — not  to  use  a  stronger  term — who  boasts 
of  not  following  a  salutary  counsel,  that  he 
does  not  know  how  to  appreciate,  because  he 
does  not  understand. 

The  English,  unlike  us,  cling  to  their  past, 
and  because  a  custom  is  old,  that  is  a  sufficient 
reason,  in  their  eyes,  for  holding  it  sacred.     I 


lS8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

feci  sure  that  there  is  not  an  EngHshman,  who 
does  not  religiously  eat  his  slice  of  plum 
pudding  on  Christmas  Day,  let  him  be  in  the 
Bush,  at  the  Antipodes,  on  land  or  on  water, 
and  no  matter  in  what  latitude. 

It  is  a  veritable  communion. 

The  English  observance  of  the  Sunday  is 
tyrannical,  I  admit,  but  it  is  an  ancient  institu- 
tion, and,  if  kept  in  an  intelligent  way,  should 
command  respect. 

If  the  people  of  Great  Britain  do  not  build 
anything  in  a  day,  they  have,  at  any  rate,  the 
good  habit  of  not  demolishing  anything  in  a 
day. 

The  Englishman  has  an  innate  love  of  old 
walls  that  recall  to  him  a  historical  fact,  a  de- 
parted grandeur,  a  memory  of  his  childhood. 

I  have  been  present  at  many  a  touching 
scene,  that  has  proved  to  me  how  deeply  the 
religio  loci  is  rooted  in  the  heart  of  every  true- 
born  Englishman. 

Here  is  one. 

An  old  City  School,  dating  from  the  fifteenth 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  189 

century,  had  just  been  transplanted  into  one  of 
the  suburbs  of  London, 

The  new  building  is  a  palace  compared  with 
the  old. 

Yet  it  was  with  profound  sadness  that  old 
scholars  learnt  of  the  removal  of  the  school 
from  its  time-honored  home.  If  they  could 
have  had  a  voice  in  the  matter,  the  change 
would  not  have  taken  place.  The  splendor  of 
the  new  school  was  nothing  to  them ;  the 
name  was  the  same,  but  it  was  their  old  school 
no  more.  On  the  day  of  the  farewell  cere- 
mony in  the  City,  I  saw  gray-headed  men, 
who  had  come  from  distant  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, on  purpose  to  bid  farewell  to  the  venerable 
walls,  to  have  one  more  look  at  them. 

*  * 

If  England,  who  only  dates  from  the 
eleventh  century,  lives  on  her  souvenirs  and 
turns  to  them  for  inspiration,  with  what  souve- 
nirs might  we  inspire  ourselves — we  who  have 
been  a  nation  for  twenty-three  centuries? 


19°  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

There  was  no  England  when  we  were  the 
terror  of  Rome.  There  Avas  no  England  when 
our  brave  and  generous  ancestors  went  to  bat- 
tle to  deliver  or  avenge  an  oppressed  nation, 
or  welcomed  a  poor  stranger  as  a  friend  sent 
by  the  gods.  There  was  no  England  when 
Vercingetorix  made  Caesar  tremble,  nor  was 
there  yet  an  England  when,  eight  hundred 
years  later,  the  exploits  of  Roland  were  inspir- 
ing the  poets  of  the  whole  of  old  Europe. 

Ah!  let  us  cling  to  our  past,  we  who  have 
such  a  glorious  one !  Where  is  the  nation  that 
can  boast  such  another? 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

ORDER   AND    LIBERTY. 

Obedience  is  the  watchword  of  England. 

The  Englishman  revolts  only  against  injus- 
tice, and  that  but  figuratively.  Brought  up  to 
respect  the  law,  it  is  in  the  name  of  the  law 
that  he  demands  redress  for  his  grievances, 
and  by  the  law  that  he  obtains  it. 

Dieii  et  inon  droit,  such  is  his  device  ;  not- 
withstanding that  he  has  rather  monopolized 
the  first,  and  that  his  definition  of  the  second 
is  a  trifle  vague,  it  is  certain  that  by  them  he 
is  stimulated  to  do  great  deeds. 

* 

Take  the  schoolboy,  for  instance. 

In  most  of  the  great  public  schools  of  Eng- 
land, the  refractory  schoolboy  is  still  chastised 
by  means  of  the  rod,  but  do  not  imagine  that 


192  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

punishment  is  administered  in  an  arbitrary 
fashion.  The  young  offender  is  brought  to 
judgment.  The  head  master  hears  the  evi- 
dence against  him,  and  listens  to  his  defense. 
If  he  is  found  guilty  of  the  offense  with  which 
he  is  charged,  the  head  master  pronounces  his 
condemnation  and  the  boy  is  corrected  on  the 
spot.  He  submits  without  a  murmur.  The 
system  may  be  bad,  but  what  is  good  about  it 
is  that  it  generally  proves  a  thorough  correction 
for  the  child. 

Under  similar  circumstances,  a  French 
schoolboy  would  probably  seize  an  inkstand, 
or  the  first  thing  he  could  lay  hands  on,  and 
menace  his  judge  or  his  executioner  with  it. 

Do  not  ask  me  which  of  the  two  I  prefer, 
but  let  me  tell  you  that  the  only  punishments 
I  have  any  objection  to  are  unjust  or  arbitrary 
ones,  and  that  severe  ones,  administered  with 
discretion,  are  generally  salutary.  At  all 
events,  I  ask  you  not  to  believe  that  the 
young  Englishman  is  cowardly  because  he 
knows  how  to  endure  pain,  and  is  submissive, 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  193 

for  a  few  minutes  later  you  will  see  him  rejoin 
his  comrades  at  their  play,  and  perform  verita- 
ble acts  of  heroism.  It  almost  seems  to  me 
that  a  child  gives  proof  of  courage  in  submit- 
ting to  a  punishment  which  he  knows  he  has 
deserved,  and  that  a  spirit  of  submission  to 
discipline  is  more  to  be  commended  in  him 
than  a  spirit  of  rebellion.  In  resigning  himself 
to  his  fate,  and  enduring  his  punishment,  the 
English  schoolboy  learns  to  master  a  passion ; 
the  French  schoolboy,  in  rebelling,  allows  a 
passion  to  master  him.  If  the  English  system 
is  bad,  the  French  one  must  be  worse. 

Since  I  have  pronounced  the  word  rebellion, 
allow  me  to  show  you  how  differently  the 
thing  is  understood  in  French  and  English 
schools. 

Let  us  suppose  that  some  privilege,  which 
the  pupils  have  long  enjoyed,  and  looked  upon 
as  their  right,  has  been  withdrawn,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  no  matter  which.  What  will  the 
French  schoolboys  do?  They  will  probably 
retire  to  a  dormitory,  there  to  sulk  and  protest 


194  ENGLISH  rHARISEES  AND 

vi  et  armis.  They  will  barricade  themselves, 
victual  the  intrcnchmcnts  for  a  few  hours,  and 
prepare  for  a  struggle.  Rebellion  has  wonder- 
ful charms  for  them ;  they  arc  insurgents, 
therefore  they  are  heroes.  If  the  cause  be  a 
bad  one,  that  matters  little,  it  will  be  sancti- 
fied by  the  revolution ;  the  main  thing  is  to 
play  at  the  peiiple  soiiverain.  These  hot- 
headed youths  will  stand  a  siege  as  earnestly 
as  if  they  had  to  defend  their  native  soil;  dic- 
tionaries, inkstands,  boots,  bedroom  furniture, 
such  are  the  missiles  that  are  pressed  into  ser- 
vice in  the  glorious  battle  for  liberty. 

But,  alas  for  youthful  valor!  it  all  fades 
before  the  pleadings  of  an  empty  stomach ; 
the  struggle  is  abandoned,  the  citadel  for- 
saken, and  arms  are  laid  down.  The  mis- 
guided ones  are  received  back  into  the  fold,  to 
be  submitted  to  stricter  discipline  than  ever, 
the  heroic  instigators  of  the  little /"//,?  are,  in 
the  end,  restored  to  the  tender  care  of  their 
mammas,  or,  in  other  words,  expelled  from  the 
school.     And  for  a  boy  to  be  expelled  from  a 


FRENCFI  CROCODILES.  195 

French  lycde  is  no  light  matter,  for  the  doors 
of  all  the  others  are  closed  to  him,  and  the 
pleasure  of  playing  at  heroes  for  a  few  hours  is 
often  bought  at  the  price  of  ruined  prospects. 

They  manage  these  things  differently  in 
England.  Under  the  same  circumstances,  this 
is  what  the  schoolboys  of  old  England  would 
do.  A  dozen  of  the  most  influential  and 
respectable  among  them  would  promptly  form 
themselves  into  a  committee,  and  organize  an 
indignation  meeting  of  all  the  pupils  of  the 
school.  This  meeting  would  be  presided  over 
by  the  captain  of  the  school,  or  even  by  one  of 
the  masters,  and  the  grievance  would  be  dis- 
cussed, not  with  any  display  of  temper,  but 
with  the  calm  dignity  of  the  free  citizen. 
Propositions  made  by  the  boys,  and  duly  sec- 
onded in  a  parliamentary  manner,  would  be 
put  to  the  vote,  and  the  president  would  be 
charged  to  transmit  such  resolutions  to  the 
proper  authorities.  The  meeting  would  then 
break  up  in  a  perfectly  orderly  manner  and 
without  a    murmur,  everyone    going  his   way, 


196  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

like  a  good  Republican  who  had  just  per- 
formed a  civic  duty  of  the  gravest  importance. 
Such  a  meeting  as  this  has  never  been  inter- 
dicted by  the  authorities,  for  the  very  simple 
reason  that  such  a  meeting  never  endangered 
the  good  discipline  of  a  school. 

* 

Has  it  indeed  fallen  to  our  lot,  to  us  who 
live  under  a  Republic,  to  see  a  people  living 
under  a  Monarchy  enjoying  every  form  of  lib- 
erty; liberty  of  thought,  liberty  of  speech, 
liberty  of  the  press,  liberty  to  meet  together, 
in  fact  the  right  of  grumbling  in  every  form 
imaginable ;  to  see  them  able  to  get  redress  for 
all  their  grievances,  without  having  recourse  to 
violence? 

Do  you  remember  the  great  manifestations 
in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  the  House  of 
Lords? 

The  Lords  had  refused  to  sanction  the  Fran- 
chise Bill — a  bill  which  was  to  give  electoral 
rights  to  two  millions  of  Englishmen,  who  had 


FREN'CH  CROCODILES.  197 

been  deprived  of  them  up  to  that  time.  Two 
hundred  thousand  persons  meet  and  quietly 
pass  through  the  great  arteries  of  London. 
Not  a  voice  is  lifted.  The  immense  crowd 
makes  for  Hyde  Park  and  there  divides  itself 
into  twelve  groups  around  twelve  improvised 
platforms.  Speeches  are  made,  resolutions 
passed,  and  the  meeting  breaks  up  in  an  or- 
derly manner. 

But,  you  will  say,  the  police  were  there,  of 
course,  to  see  that  these  people  did  not  break 
the  law. 

The  police,  indeed !  Yes,  most  certainly 
they  were  there ;  but  it  was  to  protect  the 
people's  right  of  meeting,  and  not  to  hinder 
them,  or  oppose  them,  in  the  exercise  of  their 
privileges. 

It  was  really  a  wonderful  sight  for  a  for- 
eigner, to  see  this  crowd,  bent  upon  overthrow- 
ing the  Constitution,  preceded,  flanked,  and 
followed,  by  mounted  police,  whose  duty  it 
was  to  see  that  these  subjects  of  Her  Majesty 
were   allowed    to    protest    unmolested !      And 


1 98  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

that  which  afforded  me  some  amusement  and 
more  instruction  still,  was  the  sight  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  and  some  friends  of  his,  in- 
stalled on  a  balcony  at  Whitehall, ^^  and  evi- 
dently there  to  see  the  fun ;  to  see  at  Pall  Mall 
windows  the  faces  of  lords,  apparently  much 
amused  in  watching  these  people,  who  had 
taken  a  holiday,  and  who,  if  they  did  not  gain 
their  point,  had  the  satisfaction  of  feeling  that 
they  lived  in  a  country  where  they  could  air 
their  grievances  freely. 

The  House  of  Lords  exists  still,  but  its 
members  passed  the  Franchise  Bill. 

The  Lords  are  wise  persons. 


Ah !  how  quickly  our  anniversary-keepers 
would  draw  in  their  horns,  if  the  Minister  of 
the   Interior  spoke  to  them  somewhat  in  this 

*  Some  two  hundred  years  ago,  a  king  was  taken  to  White- 
hall to  be  beheaded  for  wishing  to  govern  without  his  people  ; 
but  here  was  a  future  king  who  had  come  there  to  see  the  peo- 
ple try  to  overthrow  the  House  of  Lords. — Tempora  mutantf.r. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  1 99 

manner:  "You  wish  to  hold  your  demonstra- 
tion, my  friends  ...  I  beg  your  pardon,  citi- 
zens ;  why,  certainly !  Demonstrate  away,  to 
your  heart's  content;  there  is  nothing  to  hin- 
der you.  You  want  to  carry  a  red  flag  about 
the  streets?  Carry  it  by  all  means — red,  yel- 
low, blue,  any  color  of  the  rainbow  that  you 
like  best.  I  will  put  as  many  policemen  at 
your  disposition  as  you  may  require  to  protect 
you  in  the  free  exercise  of  your  rights." 

How  small  the  revolutionary  would  look  if 
he  were  talked  to  in  this  way !  How  mortified 
he  would  be !  But  draw  your  sword,  and  he 
is  happy.  He  goes  about  crying: 
"The  people  are  being  slaughtered !" 
It  is  the  very  worst  course  that  could  be 
adopted.  The  proper  cure  for  the  mania  for 
demonstrations  is  not  the  sword,  but  a  little 
cold  water. 

Try  how  many  followers  you  will  get  for  a 
standard  of  revolt  raised  with  the  cry : 
"The  people  are  being  syringed?' 
Ah !  where  is  the  Government  that  will  have 


200  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

first  the  strength,  and  then  the  good  sense,  to 
leave  the  people  alone,  instead  of  doing  its 
best  to  irritate  them  into  adopting  the  role  of 
martyr?  Monarchy  or  Republic,  what  matters 
the  name  of  this  Government,  so  that  it  gives 
us  what  we  are  in  search  of — our  liberty. 

The  English  newspapers  love  to  fill  their 
columns  with  the  sayings  and  doings  of  French 
Anarchists,  so  as  to  try  and  prove  to  their 
readers  that  France  "is  still  navigating  on  a 
volcano,"  although  they  know  very  well  that 
our  revolutionary  mountains  are  incapable  of 
bringing  forth  even  a  mouse,  as  the  ridiculous 
failure  of 'the  proposed  Anarchist  demonstra- 
tion at  Victor  Hugo's  funeral  proved.  The 
English  know  perfectly  well  that  in  the  year 
1867,  thanks  to  the  inopportune  meddling  of 
the  police,  there  was  a  riot,  in  Hyde  Park, 
which  was  likely  to  have  proved  very  serious. 
The  English  know  all  this ;  but  the  pot  always 
had  a  trick  of  calling  the  kettle  black. 

Our  lower  orders  are  a  thousand  times  more 
intelligent  than  the   English   ones;  and   when 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  20i 

the  French  police  force  cease  to  be  the  symbol, 
the  instrument,  of  an  arbitrary  power,  in  order 
to  become,  in  some  sort,  the  protection  of  the 
people,  our  workmen  will  astonish  the  world 
with  their  good  behavior,  as  they  did  on  the 
day  of  our  immortal  poet's  apotheosis. 

The  Frenchman  is  impressionable,  excitable  ; 
but  he  is  gentle,  and  easy  to  govern.  The 
Parisians  never  raised  any  riots  that  could  not 
be  traced  to  the  want  of  tact,  or  the  malice, 
of  the  Government ;  and  we  all  know  that  if 
M.  Thiers  had  not  been  so  bent  upon  putting 
down  a  small  revolution,  he  would  not  have 
stirred  up  a  large  one ;  the  Commune  would 
have  been  nipped  in  the  bud  at  the  Buttes- 
Chaumont  on  the  i8th  of  May,  1871.  The 
harmless  folk  who  were  looking  after  the 
famous  cannons  would  have  been  only  too 
pleased  to  go  home. 

A  nation  does  not  learn  the  proper  use  of 
freedom  in  a  day.  It  does  not  understand  at 
first  sight  that  obedience  and  respect  for  the 
law  are  two  virtues  indispensable  to  everyone 


202  ENGLISH  niAKISEES  AND 

who  wishes  to  get  on  tolerably  under  a  democ- 
racy ;  it  is  for  the  Government  to  teach  it  its 
lesson.  To  do  this  properly,  an  authority  is 
wanted  which  shall  be  vigilant,  while  making 
itself  felt  as  little  as  possible. 

This  liberty  should  be  the  monopoly  of  no 
one,  but  the  privilege  of  each  and  all.  Every 
time  our  police  officers  pounce  upon  a  red  flag 
and  tear  it  up,  every  time  they  suppress  a 
Catholic  school,  or  force  open  the  doors  of  a 
convent,  the  fruits  of  many  a  month's  lessons 
are  lost.  We  go  back;  but  the  cause  of  the 
white  or  red  flag  is  advanced. 

Why  is  Roman  Catholicism  perfectly  power- 
less in  England,  politically  speaking? 

Because  Protestant  England  allows  the 
Romanists  to  open  as  many  churches,  schools, 
and  convents  as  they  please. 

All  that  England  demands  from  those  who 
live  on  her  hospitable  soil  is  respect  for  her 
laws.  Monarchs  exiled  by  their  subjects,  and 
Communists,  Nihilists,  Socialists,  exiled  by 
their  monarchs,  may  jostle  one  another  in  her 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  203 

streets  any  day ;  the  individual  liberty  of  the 
revolutionary  subject  being  held  as  sacred  as 
that  of  the  ex-monarch. 

Our  neighbor's  eccentricities  are  but  the 
natural  fruit  of  hberty ;  and  these  same  eccen- 
tricities, which  amuse  us  so  much,  in  England 
pass  unnoticed.  Everyone  does  as  he  pleases, 
and  thinks  it  quite  natural  that  others  should 
do  the  same.  I  have  seen  young  girls  on  tri- 
cycles make  their  way  through  a  crowd,  with- 
out an  unpleasant  remark  or  a  joke  being 
indulged  in  at  their  expense.  The  men  made 
way,  and  allowed  them  to  pass  without  re- 
marking them  more  than  if  they  had  been  on 
horseback. 

Do  not  fear  the  abuse  of  liberty;  among  an 
intelligent  race,  good  sense  will  always  take 
the  upper  hand. 

Liberty  is  sure  to  lead  to  a  few  excesses; 
but  it  does  not  suffer  because  of  them. 

Take  England  again. 


204  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

English  religious  liberty  is  in  no  wise  in 
danger  because  the  law  tolerates,  nay,  protects, 
the  rowdy  proselytes  of  the  Booth  family. 
True  religion  may  suffer,  but  not  religious 
liberty. 

The  right  of  association  is  not  in  danger 
because  ^i  pJiilanthropic  club  has  been  formed 
at  Ashpull,  in  Lancashire,  by  men  who  sub- 
scribe to  defray  the  costs  when  one  of  their 
number  is  fined  for  ill-treating  his  wife.* 

No,  no,  these  eccentricities  do  but  prove  the 
vital  force  of  England. 

There  is  no  need  to  penetrate  deeply  into 
French  and  English  life,  to  study  the  tempers 
of  the  two  nations.  The  streets  of  London 
and  Paris  furnish  the  observer  with  ample 
materials  every  day. 

In  the  month  of  April,  1891,  I  was  one  day 
on  the   top   of  the  Odeon    omnibus.     \\\   the 

*  The  society  in  question  is  described  in  tlie  English  news- 
papers of  the  19th  of  December,  1884. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  205 

Boulevard  des  Italiens  some  repairs  were  going 
on,  and  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Richelieu 
there  was  such  a  crowd  of  carriages  as  to  cause 
a  block.  The  question  then  arose,  who  was  to 
pass  first,  those  who  came  from  the  Madeleine 
or  those  who  came  from  the  Bastille.  An 
altercation  soon  arose  between  the  drivers,  and 
that  in  a  vocabulary  which  I  will  spare  m}' 
readers.  Meanwhile,  the  string  of  carriages 
lengthened,  and  the  matter  was  becoming  seri- 
ous. At  last  up  comes  a  police  ofificer  who 
gets  the  situation  explained  to  him,  forth- 
with enters  into  a  discussion  with  the  drivers, 
and  tries  to  make  the  Madeleine  party  under- 
stand that  it  is  their  place  to  give  way.  He 
might  as  well  have  talked  to  the  pavement. 
A  hubbub  uprose  on  all  sides  enough  to  make 
one's  hair  stand  on  end.  Everybody  was  in 
the  right,  it  seemed,  and  the  poor  police 
officer,  tired  of  seeing  his  parliamentary 
efforts  so  fruitless,  withdrew,  saying:  "Very 
well,  then,  do  as  you  please;  I'll  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  it"  {sic).     About  a  quarter  of 


2o6  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

an  hour  later,  we  turned  into  the  Rue  de 
Richelieu. 

And  now  here  is  a  scene  which  you  may 
witness  every  day  in  any  part  of  London. 

In  every  spot  where  the  traffic  is  great,  you 
will  see  a  policeman.  He  is  there  to  regulate 
the  circulation  of  the  vehicles,  and  protect  the 
foot  passengers  who  may  wish  to  cross  the 
road.  In  the  discharge  of  this  duty,  all  that 
he  has  to  do  is  to  lift  his  hand,  and,  at  this 
gesture,  the  drivers  stop,  like  a  company  of 
soldiers  at  the  word  "halt!"  Not  a  murmur, 
not  a  sign  of  impatience,  not  a  word.  When 
the  little  accumulation  of  foot  passengers  has 
safely  crossed,  the  policeman  lowers  his  hand, 
and  everything  is  in  motion  again. 

How  many  times,  as  I  have  looked  on  at  this 
sight,  which  to  the  English  appears  so  natural, 
have  I  said  enviously  to  myself:  "If  these 
English  people  are  free,  if  they  are  masters  of 
half  the  world,  and  of  themselves  into  the  bar- 
gain, it  is  because  they  know  how  to  obey!" 

I   know   the  favorite   explanation    of   these 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  207 

striking  contrasts :  the  temperaments  are  dif- 
ferent ;  the  blood  does  not  circulate  in  Eng- 
lish veins  with  so  much  impetuosity  as  it  does 
in  French  ones.  This  is  true,  though  only  to 
a  certain  extent.  But  be  not  deceived ;  it  is 
the  difference  which  exists  between  the  educa- 
tion of  the  two  races  that  is  the  real  solution 
of  the  problem. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE   HUMORS   OF   POLITICS. 

Ah  !  what  I  envy  the  EngHsh  is  that  secur- 
ity for  the  morrow,  which  they  owe  to  a  form 
of  government  no  one,  so  to  speak,  thinks  seri- 
ously of  questioning. 

The  Englishman  is  the  stanchest  monarchist, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  freest  man  in  the 
world,  which  proves  that  freedom  is  compati- 
ble with  a  monarchial  government.  There  is 
no  French  Legitimist  more  royalist  than  he, 
there  is  no  French  Republican  more  passion- 
ately fond  of  liberty ;  nay,  I  will  go  so  far  as 
to  say  that,  in  France,  people  would  be 
treated  as  dangerous  demagogues,  who  de- 
manded certain  liberties  which  the  English 
have  long  possessed  under  a  monarchy,  and  to 
defend  which  the  most  conservative  of  them 
would  allow  himself  to  be  rent  in  pieces. 

2og 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


At  first  sight,  the  theory  of  government  in 
England  appears  to  be  most  simple ;  two  great 
political  parties,  each  having  its  leader,  whose 
authority  is  uncontested,  and  who  takes  office 
amid  the  acclamations  of  half  the  nation.  Is 
the  country  threatened  with  danger,  party 
spirit  vanishes.  Liberals  and  Conservatives  dis- 
appear ;  the  Englishman  is  supreme. 

All  this  appears  as  simple  as  admirable.     I 

will  show  farther  on,  however,  that  if  there  is 

fixity    in    the   form   of  the  government,  there 

cannot  be  any  consistency  in  the  politics  of  the 

country. 

* 

Things  are  forgotten  to  such  an  extent  in 
England  that  I  have  rarely  seen  a  Liberal 
paper  revert  to  the  fact  that  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  the  illustrious  leader  of  the  Conservative 
party,  began  his  political  life  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Radicals,  or  Conservative  papers  remind 
people  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  leader  of  the 
Liberals,  began  his  brilliant  career  in  the  Con- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


servative  ranks.  At  all  events,  I  never  saw 
anyone  reproach  these  great  statesmen  with 
having  turned  their  coats.  Lord  Derby,  who 
was  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  under  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  was  Colonial  Minister  in  Mr. 
Gladstone's  Cabinet.  Punch  had  a  caricature 
on  the  subject,  and  there  was  an  end  of  the 
matter. 

Such  proceedings  would  excite  contempt  or 
indignation  in  France ;  but  to  judge  them  in 
England  from  a  French  point  of  view  would 
be  absurd. 

In  France,  political  convictions  rest  on  the 
form  of  government.  In  England,  everyone, 
or  almost  everyone,  is  of  one  mind  on  that 
subject ;  Conservatives  and  Liberals  both  will 
have  a  democracy,  having  for  its  object  the 
material,  moral,  and  intellectual  progress  of  the 
people,  with  a  monarchy  to  act  as  ballast. 

The  only  difference  that  I  see  in  the  history 
of  the  two  parties,  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
is  that  the  Conservatives  willingly  sacrifice 
their  home  policy  to  the  prestige  of  a  ppirited 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


foreign  policy,  while  the  Liberals  pay  more 
attention  to  internal  "politics,  to  the  detriment, 
perhaps,  of  foreign  ones. 

Here  it  should  be  added  that,  when  an  Eng- 
lishman accepts  the  task  of  forming  a  minis- 
try, it  is,  in  the  eyes  of  his  partisans,  out  of 
pure  abnegation,  to  serve  his  country,  and,  in 
the  eyes  of  his  opponents,  out  of  pure  ambi- 
tion, to  serve  his  own  interests. 

The  difference  which  separates  a  Monarchist 
and  a  Republican  in  France  is  an  abyss  that 
nothing  can  bridge  over;  the  difference  which 
separates  a  Liberal  and  a  Conservative  in 
England  is  but  a  trifling  step. 

So  the  candidate  for  Parliament,  who  re- 
hearses, in  pctio,  the  little  speech  that  he  means 
to  address  to  the  electors,  winds  up  with  :  "Gen- 
tlemen, such  are  my  political  convictions,  but, 
if  they  do  not  please  you,  let  it  be  well  under- 
stood between  us  that  I  am  ready  to  change 
them."  Or:  "Gentlemen,  I  used  to  be  a  Con- 
servative, and  at  bottom  I  am  a  Conservative 
still,  but   Mr.   Gladstone   has  appointed   me  a 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  213 

Civil  Commissioner  at  a  salary  of  ;!^2000  a 
year,  and  I  consider  that  a  statesman  who 
chooses  his  servants  so  well  ought  to  be  sup- 
ported by  all  sensible  men.  Besides,  in  my 
new  capacity,  it  is  not  a  party  that  I  am  serv^- 
ing,  it  is  my  country." 

To  speak  seriously,  I  really  see  very  little 
either  in  the  so-called  Liberal  or  Conservative 
principles  that  can  cause  an  Englishman  to  be 
anything  more  than  the  partisan  of  a  certain 
group  of  men. 

Under  the  circumstances,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  English  politics  should,  above  all  things, 
consist  in  doing  in  Office  what  has  been  val- 
iantly fought  in  Opposition ;  it  is  a  school  of 
incisive,  passionate  debate — nothing  more. 
The  following  incident,  which  is  as  instructive 
as  it  is  amusing,  is  sufBcient  proof  of  this: 

When  Lord  Beaconsfield  deftly  snatched 
Cyprus  from  the  "unspeakable"  Turk,  in  1878, 
and,  presenting  it  to  John  Bull,  asked  him  to 
admire  the  fine  catch,  John's  Liberal  sons 
turned  up  their  noses,  declared  that  the  hon- 


214  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

esty  of  the  proceeding  was  dubious,  and  vowed 
the  place  was  not  fit  to  send  British  soldiers 
to.  "It  would  hardly  be  humane  to  send  our 
convicts  there,"  they  said;  "not  even  flies 
could  stand  the  climate."  Two  years  later  the 
Tories  went  out  of  office,  and  the  Liberals 
came  to  power.  What  happened?  You 
think,  perhaps,  that  the  Liberals  promptly 
restored  the  island  to  the  Turks  with  their 
compliments  and  apologies.  Catch  them ! 
Better  than  that.  No  sooner  were  the  Tories 
out  of  office  than  the  yachts  of  three  leading 
Liberals  might  have  been  seen  sailing  toward 
Cyprus,  which,  it  would  seem,  a  simple  change 
of  ministry  had  changed  into  a  health  resort. 
In  the  beginning  of  May  of  the  current  year, 
the  Liberal  Government  gave  orders  to  the 
military  authorities  of  the  army  of  occupation 
in  Egypt,  to  send  to  Cyprus  all  the  sick  sol- 
diers, who  were  in  a  fiit  state  to  be  transferred 
— not  to  finish  them  up,  but  actually  to  hasten 
their  convalescence. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  215 

Ever  since  every  householder  has  enjoyed 
electoral  rights,  each  general  election  has 
placed  the  Opposition  in  power;  and  the  en- 
franchisement of  Mr.  Gladstone's  new  couches 
sociales  is  not  likely  to  change  this  state  of 
things,  which  is,  indeed,  very  easy  to  account 
for. 

The  necessarily  guarded  speech  of  those  in 
office  does  not  catch  the  ear  of  the  ignorant 
multitude  so  readily  as  the  irresponsible  talk 
of  the  Opposition,  The  man  in  power  has  to 
defend  a  policy,  the  other  attacks  it  right  and 
left ;  it  is  he  who  has  the  popular  role.  "Ah  !" 
say  the  crowd,  "smart  fellow  that !  if  we  could 
only  have  him  in  Office,  things  would  be  done 
in  a  proper  manner !  What  has  become  of  all 
the  fine  promises  of  the  ministry?" 

So  they  make  up  their  minds  to  vote  for  the 
man  who  comes  to  them  with  fresh  promises, 
and  to  throw  overboard  the  one  who  has  not 
been  able  to  keep  his. 

If  the  Government  has  engaged  in  war,  the 


2i6  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Opposition  proves  to  the  people  what  a  disas- 
trous, or,  at  the  best,  what  a  useless  war  it 
was;  if  the  Government  has  been  able  to  main- 
tain peace,  the  Opposition  proves  to  the  peo- 
ple that  it  was  at  the  price  of  national  honor. 
The  Opposition  is  always  in  the  right. 

To  think  that  men  of  talent  should  lower 
themselves  so  far  as  to  flatter  the  populace 
with  such  platitudes  to  obtain  their  favor! 
How  sad  a  sight  is  this  vulgarization  of  poli- 
tics !  And  people  often  wonder  how  it  is  that, 
in  democracies,  the  great  thinkers,  the  genius 
of  the  nation,  refrain  from  buying  the  favors 
of  the  people  at  the  price  of  their  dignity! 
Unhappily,  this  is  the  fate  of  democracies; 
they  can  but  seldom  be  ruled  by  the  genius 
of  the  nation,  by  men  who  would  not  be  ap- 
preciated by  the  masses.  No  system  lends 
itself  better  to  the  reign  of  unscrupulous  medi- 
ocrity, for  no  other  system  obliges  its  chiefs  to 
come  and  humble  themselves  before  the  igno- 
rant populace,  by  giving  them  acrobatic  per- 
formances in  order  to  obtain  their  sufTrages. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  217 

Under  a  democracy,  everybody  goes  into 
politics,  and  everybody  requires  to  be  pleased. 

The  literary  man,  the  scholar,  the  artist,  all 
are  criticised  by  more  or  less  competent 
judges;  but  the  statesman,  who  is  there  that 
does  not  criticise  him?  Who  does  not  take 
upon  himself  to  judge  him  without  appeal? 
Who  does  not  drag  him  in  the  mud?  Who 
does  not  cry,  "Stop  thief!"  when  he  is  bold 
enough  to  buy  a  dozen  railway  shares,  like  the 
smallest  shopkeeper  in  the  land? 

No  one  says  to  himself,  "The  Prime  Minis- 
ter is  not  a  fool ;  he  ought  to  know  what  he  is 
about ;  and  even  if  he  were  a  rogue,  is  it  not 
to  his  interest  to  serve  his  country  to  the  best 
of  his  ability?" 

Why,  even  the  schoolboy  goes  into  politics 
nowadays. 

I  warrant  that  there  is  not  a  single  man,  in 
France  or  England,  who  does  not  believe  him- 
self perfectly  capable  of  criticising  the  acts  of 
his  Prime  Minister,  and  very  few,  who  do  not 
feel  equal  to  filling  his  place,  if,  for  tJie  good  of 


2i8  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

their  country,  they  were  called  by  their  fellow- 
citizens  to  fulfill  these  arduous  duties. 

*  * 

There  is  a  great  virtue,  a  virtue  eminently 
English,  which  we  French  do  not  possess; 
respect  for  the  man  who  is  down.  Yet  it  is 
not  that  we  lack  magnanimity ;  but  we  also 
have  our  contrasts.  Generous,  of  a  chivalric 
character,  with  a  repugnance  for  any  kind  of 
meanness,  we  yet  insult  the  fallen  man  and 
even  bespatter  the  memory  of  one  who  has 
gone  to  the  grave.  We  consoled  ourselves  for 
Sedan  by  singing  "C'est  le  Sire  de  Fiche-ton- 
Campy  On  the  death  of  M.  Thiers,  a  cele- 
brated Bonapartist  journalist  exclaimed  that 
he  could  jump  for  joy  over  the  tomb  of  him 
who  had  just  liberated  his  country.  Open  the 
newspapers  of  to-day,  and  you  will  still  see 
Gambetta's  memory  insulted. 

In  England,  they  would  have  forgotten  that 
Gambetta  was  a  party  man,  and  have  remem- 
bered only  his  eloquence,  which  that  of  Mira- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  219 

beau  alone  could  have  eclipsed,  and  which 
made  him  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments  of 
contemporary  France. 

When  Mr.  Bright  left  the  political  arena  for 
a  world  from  whence  jealousy  is  banished,  and 
subscription  lists  were  opened  for  erecting  a 
statue  to  him,  the  Conservatives  sent  their 
contributions  as  well  as  the  Liberals ;  they  for- 
got the  Radical,  and  remembered  but  the  ora- 
tor and  the  philanthropist.  At  the  death  of 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  it  was 
Mr,  Gladstone,  the  political  enemy  of  the  Tory 
chief,  who  pronounced  the  panegyric  of  that 
illustrious  man  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

This  is  a  sentiment  that  is  found,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  notice,  in  all  classes,  even  down  to 
the  English  rough.  When  two  men  of  the 
lower  classes  fight,  and  one  of  them  falls  to  the 
ground,  the  other  waits  until  his  adversary  is 
up  again,  before  returning  to  the  attack.  Do 
not  imagine,  however,  that  this   sentiment   is 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 


born  of  magnanimous  bravery,  for  this  same 
man,  who  respects  his  fallen  adversary,  will,  as 
soon  as  he  reaches  his  hovel,  seize  his  wife  by 
her  hair,  knock  her  down,  and  literally  kick  her 
to  death  at  the  first  provocation. 

In  the  latter  case,  there  is  no  combat ;  there 
is  correction  administered  by  the  master  to  his 
slave. 

If  the  English  have  more  respect  than  we 
for  the  man  who  is  down,  it  is  because  they 
forget  much  more  quickly  than  ourselves. 
Does  this  prove  that  they  have  less  intelli- 
gence or  more  generosity?  No.  They  are 
less  impressionable,  that  is  all.  The  trace  dis- 
appears more  easily,  because  the  impression  is 
less  deep.  I  think  this  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  differences  between  the  two  peo- 
ples. 


* 
*  * 


In  France,  it  is  not  an  unwise  act  that  ruins 
a  political  man — it  is,  above  all  things,  a  phrase 
blurted  out  in  a  moment  of  exultation.  An 
act  is  forgotten  sooner  or  later;  but  an  unfor- 


FRENCH  CROCODILES. 


tunate  phrase  sticks  to  a  man,  and  becomes 
part  and  parcel  of  him,  his  motto,  written  on 
his  forehead  in  indelible  characters,  and  which 
he  carries  with  him  to  the  grave. 

Take  the  case  of  M.  Emile  Ollivier.  Since 
the  fall  of  Thiers,  we  have  had  no  minister, 
with  the  exception  of  Gambetta,  whose  politi- 
cal talent  could  be  compared  to  that  of  the 
Liberal  minister  of  Napoleon  III.  And  yet, 
M.  Emile  Ollivier  little  knows  his  compatriots, 
if  he  thinks  it  is  possible  for  him  ever  again  to 
enter  the  political  arena.  To  this  very  day, 
the  masses  ignore  that  it  was  he  who  pro- 
claimed war  with  Prussia,  but  there  is  scarcely 
a  child  who  does  not  know  that  he  said  "he 
contemplated  the  coming  struggle  with  a  light 
heart."  M.  Ollivier  is,  and  will  remain  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  the  light-hearted  man.  Ridi- 
cule kills  in  France,  and  M.  Ollivier  is  ridicu- 
lous.    It  is  all  over  with  him.* 

*  A  member  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Cabinet  said  to  me  one  day 
that,  in  England,  a  statesman  of  M.  OUivier's  ability  would  be 
sure  to  return  to  power. 


ENGLISH  PHARISEES  A  AW 


M.  Jules  Favrc  was  a  great  orator,  and  for 
that  reason  one  of  the  ornaments  of  his  cen- 
tury. This  is  forgotten.  He  signed  the  dis- 
astrous conditions  of  peace  dictated  by  Prince 
Bismarck.  That  might  have  been  overlooked. 
But  he  had  said  beforehand  that  "not  one  inch 
of  territory,  not  one  stone  of  any  French  fort- 
ress, would  he  yield."  This  sentence  was  his 
political  knell. 

General  Ducrot  was  a  brave  soldier.  On 
leaving  Paris  to  go  and  attack  the  Prussians, 
he  was  so  ill-advised  as  to  declare  that  he 
Avould  return  "dead  or  victorious."  However, 
he  was  still  more  ill-advised  to  come  back  alive 
and  vanquished.  Here  was  another  only  fit  to 
throw  overboard. 

Our  history  is  full  of  similar  incidents; 
actions  pass  away  and  are  forgotten,  words 
remain.  Ask  any  ordinary  Frenchman,  not 
well  up  in  the  history  of  France,  who  Mirabeau 
was.  He  will  tell  you  that  Mirabeau  was  a 
representative  of  the  people,  who  one  day  ex- 
claimed at  the   Assemble'e  Constituante :  "We 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  223 

are  here  by  the  power  of  the  people ;  nothing 
but  the  power  of  the  bayonet  shall  remove  us," 

The  history  of  France  might  be  written 
between  inverted  commas. 

Louis  XIV.  has  gone  down  to  posterity 
with  the  formula:  "VEtai  cest  inoi";  and 
Napoleon  III.  wuth  that  device,  suggested  by 
the  irony  of  fate:  *'L' Empire  cest  la  paix." 
Lamartine  is  the  man  who,  outside  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  cried :  "The  tricolor  flag  has  been 
round  the  world ;  the  red  flag  has  only  been 
round  the  Champ  de  Mars."  Thiers  said: 
"The  Republican  form  of  government  is  the 
one  that  divides  us  the  least."  Gambetta: 
"Clericalism;  that  is  the  enemy." 

And  to  parody  a  celebrated  proverb,  I  might 
say  that  French  politics  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  words : 

Acta  volant,  verba  manent. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

LORDS   AND    SENATORS. 

The  existence  of  a  hereditary  House  of  Lords 
is  a  standing  insult  to  the  common  sense  of 
the  EngHsh  people. 

England  is  governed  by  the  eldest  sons  of 
the  aristocracy. 

Now,  all  who  have  had  much  to  do  with 
youth  are  perfectly  agreed  that,  as  a  rule,  the 
eldest  son  is  the  least  intelligent  in  each 
family. 

The  first  born  is  a  ballon  d'essai. 

Moreover,  the  eldest  son  of  the  aristocrat  is 
the  sole  heir  to  his  father's  title  and  estates. 
He  knows  that  the  fortune  cannot  escape  him. 
And  so,  at  school,  he  does  no  work;  he 
leaves  that  sort  of  thing  to  his  younger  broth- 
ers, who  will  have  to  make  their  way  in  the 
world.     When  he  leaves  school  or  college,  his 


226  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

chief  subjects  of  preoccupation  are  Jews  and 
jockeys. 

It  is  needless  to  add  that,  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  the  proportion  of  Conservatives  to  Lib- 
erals is  overwhelming. 

Consequently,  when  the  Liberals  are  in 
power,  the  House  of  Lords  is  a  dangerous 
institution,  which  may  at  every  moment  hin- 
der the  working  of  the  governmental  machine; 
and  when  the  Conservatives  are  in  power,  the 
House  of  Lords  is  a  useless  institution,  be- 
cause its  approbation  can  be  relied  upon  in 
advance  by  the  Government. 

Does  it  not  seem  as  if  any  second  chamber 
must  necessarily  be  dangerous  or  useless? 

* 

There  is  an  episode  of  French  history  which, 
to  my  mind,  has  been  forgotten  much  too 
soon. 

It  teaches  a  great  lesson  on  the  usefulness  of 
Upper  Houses. 

It  was  under  the  Second  Empire. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  227 

The  French  Senate  was  then,  intellectually 
speaking,  a  body  of  men  superior  to  the  House 
6f  Lords,  since  they  were  picked  men — chosen 
by  the  Emperor,  it  is  true,  but  still  chosen. 
With  the  exception  of  Sainte-Beuve,  these 
senators  of  the  Empire  were  more  or  less 
Bonapartists ;  cardinals,  archbishops,  marshals, 
generals,  literary  men,  all  men  of  importance. 
The  duty  of  the  Senate  was  to  watch  over  the 
Constitution,  and  to  stop  any  bill,  passed  by 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that  might  have 
endangered  the  existence  of  the  actual  form  of 
Government. 

Well,  in  July,  1870,  the  Franco-Prussian  war 
broke  out,  and,  on  the  4th  of  September,  in 
the  same  year,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  de- 
posed the  Emperor,  and  proclaimed  the  Re- 
public. 

Here  was  a  grand  opportunity  for  the  sena- 
tors of  showing  their  power,  and  of  earning 
the  30,000  francs  that  they  each  received  from 
their  master. 

Yet  what  happened? 


2  28  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

Not  one  voice  was  raised  by  the  Senate 
against  the  act  of  the  deputies. 

Better  still:  nobody  thought  of  taking  the 
trouble  to  dismiss  them  of^cially.  In  presence 
of  the  strong  will  of  the  people,  they  packed 
up  their  traps  quietly,  and,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  even  forgot  to  go  to  the  counting- 
house  to  receive  their  month's  pay. 

Poor  senators!  they  seemed  to  have  the 
measure  of  their  power  in  stormy  times  to  an 
inch. 

In  presence  of  the  will  of  the  nation, 
strongly  manifested,  the  House  of  Lords 
would  be  as  powerless  as  the  French  Senate 
was  in  1870. 

A  strange  application  of  that  great  English 
principle,  "the  right  man  in  the  right  place,"  is 
the  existence  of  this  same  Upper  House  in 
England ! 

What !  can  it  be  that  this,  the  most  sensible 
nation  of  the  world,  who  has  withdrawn  all  the 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  229 

privileges  of  its  monarchs,  who  has  imposed 
restrictions  upon  them,  and  will  not  even  allow 
them  to  make  the  slightest  political  allusion  in 
public,  can  it  be  this  nation  that  has  given 
itself  so  many  masters  at  once?  If  the  Eng- 
lish do  not  allow  their  kings  unlimited  power, 
it  is  because,  in  their  wisdom,  they  fear  that 
those  kings  may  be  born  fools,  or  grow  into 
despots;  but  out  of  five  hundred  lords,  three 
or  four  hundred  may  be  born  fools;  where 
then  is  the  gain?  Better  be  governed  by  one 
fool  than  by  three  or  four  hundred. 

Among  a  free  people,  intellect  alone  ought 
to  be  admitted  into  the  councils  of  the  nation. 

No  one  could  have  a  word  to  say  against 
such  men  as  the  Duke  of  Argyll  and  the  Mar- 
quis of  Salisbury  having  a  vote  to  cast  into 
the  scales  of  England's  destinies;  but  would 
not  these  able  members  of  the  aristocracy  of 
birth  gain  in  influence  and  prestige,  if  they  sat 
in  an  elected  house,  side  by  side  with  the  aris- 
tocracy of  talent? 

Perhaps  they  may  think  so  themselves. 


230  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

The  House  of  Lords  owes  its  existence  to 
the  English  taste  for  antiquities  or  curiosities; 
this  people,  to  its  honor  be  it  said,  only  slowly 
rids  itself  of  its  trammels. 

It  may  safely  be  predicted  that  the  first 
great  political  gust  of  wind  will  blow  away  to 
pieces  this  sort  of  hydropathic  establishment. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

WHAT     FRANCE    HAS     DONE     TO     MERIT    THE 
RESPECT   OF   THE   WORLD. 

France,  ruined  by  the  wars  and  extravagances 
of  Louis  XIV.,  exasperated  by  the  turpitudes 
of  Louis  XV.,  encouraged  by  the  weakness  of 
Louis  XVL,  revolts.  Thrones  tremble,  and 
the  whole  world  is  awe-struck  at  the  terrible 
Revolution.  Kings  league  themselves  to- 
gether against  her ;  but  such  is  her  might  that, 
with  soldiers  half  armed,  half  clothed,  half  fed, 
she  puts  to  flight  the  allied  armies  of  the  ene- 
mies, who  had  sworn  to  crush  her. 

Up  rises  a  man  and  wrests  from  her  all  the 
liberty  she  had  just  bought  at  the  price  of  so 
much  bloodshed.  To  steady  himself  upon  an 
unsteady  throne.  Napoleon  engages  in  dynastic 
wars  for  ten  years,  marching  his  victorious 
army    from    capital   to    capital,  while    Europe 


232  ENGLISH  PHARISEES  AND 

wonders  and  trembles.  At  length  the  eagle 
falls,  and  France,  sick  of  military  glory,  beaten, 
but  not  humiliated,  takes  breath  and  submits 
to  the  Restoration  imposed  upon  her  by  the 
allied  invaders.  To  console  herself  for  the  loss 
of  the  Republic,  a  form  of  government  least 
calculated  to  foster  literature  and  the  fine  arts, 
she  profits  by  the  return  of  monarchical  rule  to 
inaugurate  the  Golden  Age  of  1830.  I  say  the 
Age  0/  iS 2,0,  for  such  is  the  name  this  epoch, 
one  of  the  most  glorious  in  the  history  of 
France,  will  be  known  by  in  the  next  century. 
Now  appear,  in  poetry,  Victor  Hugo,  Lamar- 
tine,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Beranger;  in  fiction, 
Balzac,  Chateaubriand,  Alexandre  Dumas, 
George  Sand;  in  history,  Thiers,  Guizot;  in 
political  oratory,  Manuel,  Foy,  Berryer;  in 
criticism,  Sainte-Beuve,  Jules  Janin ;  in  paint- 
ing, Horace  Vernet,  Ingres,  Delacroix,  Gudin ; 
in  music,  Boieldieu,  Herold,  Halevy,  Auber; 
in  tragedy,  Talma,  Rachel ;  in  comedy,  Mars, 
Duvernoy;  in  opera,  Nourrit,  Duprez,  La- 
blache,  Baroilhet,  Malibran. 


FRENCH  CROCODILES.  233 

I  have  mentioned  but  a  few  of  the  princes 
of  talent. 

To  keep  her  hand  in  practice,  she  makes  the 
conquest  of  Algeria,  and,  later  on,  having 
nothing  else  particular  in  hand,  she  takes  it 
into  her  head  to  make  the  Suez  Canal,  a  gigan- 
tic undertaking,  which  of  itself  would  be 
enough  to  save  the  nineteenth  century  from 
oblivion.  Ever  enamored  of  great  names, 
she  re-establishes  the  Empire,  because  there  is 
a  man  in  the  world  who  bears  the  name  of  the 
victor  of  Austerlitz.  Smitten  once  more  with 
that  strange  malady,  the  love  of  glory,  she 
fights  Russia  in  1855  to  prevent  her  from 
going  to  Constantinople,  and  Austria  in  1859 
to  create  Italian  unity.  Then  comes  that  ter- 
rible year,  the  year  1870.  With  an  army  of 
350,000  men,  she  sanctions  a  war,  like  the  child 
that  she  is,  with  a  nation,  which  for  sixteen 
years  had  been  silently  preparing  to  avenge 
her  defeat  at  Jena,  and  which  had  1,200,0000 
men  ready  to  take  the  field.  She  is  con- 
quered, and,  alas!  humiliated.     She  pays  her 


234  ENGLISH  PHARISEES. 

conquerors  $1,000,000,000,  but  this  she  has 
almost  forgotten,  and  sees  wrenched  from  her 
two  provinces  that  she  loved  and  was  beloved 
by;  this  she  will  never  forget.  The  following 
year,  she  holds  up  her  head,  the  richest  and 
most  esteemed  of  European  nations.  To- 
day, if  she  only  had  a  leader,  republican  or 
monarch,  she  would  be  the  strongest. 

Ah,  dear  Foreigners  all  over  the  world,  re- 
spect her,  that  beautiful  France !  I  have  often 
heard  the  sincerest  and  most  intelligent  of  you 
say  that  no  country  in  the  world  would  prob- 
ably have  been  able  to  do  as  much. 


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body  who  laughs.     Reminiscences  of  such  an  exceptional  career 

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the  course  of  his  professional  life.  Thus,  in  his  acknowledgment, 
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reminiscences,  and  funny  experiences  from  the  lips  of  the  following 
witty,  wise,  and  eloquent  thinkers,  now  dead  :  Abraham  Lincoln, 
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Travers,  Artemus  Ward,  Nasby,  Josh  Billings,  John  G.  Saxe,  and 
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46 


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ORATIONS  m 
AFTER-DINNER 

SPEECHES 

OF 

CHAUNCEY  M.    DEPEJV, 

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